Colorado State lowers Atlantic hurricane season forecast but warns 'extremely busy' season still expected
FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Experts at Colorado State University have slightly lowered the forecast for the remainder of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, but their outlook still calls for a much busier-than-average season.
So far, the 2024 hurricane season has spawned four named storms, including Hurricane Beryl, which slammed Texas in July, and Hurricane Debby, which made landfall in Florida on Monday.
Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at CSU, and his team are now calling for 23 named storms, 12 of which could reach hurricane strength and six that could become major (Category 3 or higher) hurricanes.
Those figures include the four named storms that have already formed so far this hurricane season.
While that’s a slight decrease from CSU's previous forecasts in June and July, which called for 25 named storms, it's still significantly higher than the average of 14 named storms.
"The updated August forecast takes newly available data into consideration as the peak of the season approaches," CSU said in a news release. "While there is uncertainty with all seasonal outlooks, the forecast team has higher confidence than normal that this season will be extremely busy."
The updated forecast from CSU predicts a 56% chance that a major hurricane will strike somewhere along the U.S. coastline during the remainder of the hurricane season.
Along the U.S. coastline from the Florida Peninsula to Maine, forecasters predict there is a 30% chance of a major hurricane strike.
Along the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, Texas, there is a 38% chance that a major hurricane will hit.
CSU says that so far, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is exhibiting atmospheric and oceanic conditions similar to those found in 1886, 1926, 1933, 1995, 2005, 2010, and 2020.
"Our analog seasons were all very active Atlantic hurricane seasons," Klotzbach said in the news release. "This highlights the somewhat higher level of confidence that exists with this outlook relative to our typical early August forecast."
The CSU team predicts that hurricane activity in 2024 will be about 190% of the average season from 1991 to 2020.
"By comparison, 2023's hurricane activity was about 120% of the average season," CSU said.