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The Atlantic hurricane season officially ended a week ago, but already the predictions for next season are starting to emerge. And like dark clouds on the distant horizon, they are not reassuring.
The 2018 season will be another above average one, according to a forecast issued Thursday by Tropical Storm Risk, a consortium of experts in tropical forecasting and insurance and risk management.
The season could see about 15 tropical storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes, Tropical Storm Risk predicted.
Its scientists — who include meteorologists, climatologists and statisticians — are based at University College London.
And although the prediction echoes the similar sentiment from some U.S. forecasters — namely that 2018 will be a busier-than-normal season — the prognostication also comes with some caveats.
The two experts who authored the forecast, Professor Mark Saunders and Dr. Adam Lea, of University College London’s Department of Space and Climate Physics, stated “the uncertainties associated with this outlook are large and the forecast skill at this extended range is historically low.”
The forecast calls for “slightly above-norm activity.”
The main predictor, it said, was the anticipation that the July-September trade wind speed “will be slightly weaker than normal and thus have an enhancing effect on Atlantic hurricane activity in 2018.”
Warm ocean temperatures and low wind shear — the opposing winds that prevent hurricane formation — are expected again in 2018. Other weather watchers also expect above-average activity, even if it’s not as busy as the catastrophic 2017 season.
Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the popular Weather Underground website, told the Sun Sentinel in late November as the 2017 hurricane season was winding down that he expects another busier-than-normal one next year. But like Tropical Storm Risk, he acknowledged things could change.
“My hunch is that we will see another active season in 2018, though we have little skill making such forecasts so far in advance,” Masters said. “My forecast is based on the idea that El Niño conditions will not be present next fall, as is often the case when we see a developing La Niña event the preceding winter.”
Dan Kottlowski, senior meteorologist and hurricane expert at AccuWeather, expressed a similar sentiment in a Sun Sentinel interview at the close of the 2017 season.
“The conditions for tropical development won’t be quite as ideal [as 2017], however with the warm temperatures across the Atlantic Basin we have to assume there will be a better chance we’ll see an above-average number of storms across the Atlantic next year,” Kottlowski said.
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