On April 9, Colorado State University hurricane forecasters issued their forecast of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season. The team of researchers William Gray and Phil Klotzbach have lowered the numbers of their first 2009 forecast, dated December 10, 2008, from 14 named storms in the Atlantic Basin to 12. They foresee this storm activity as average.
Klotzbach said the new forecast is based on factors including anomalous cooling of tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures and the curent weak La Nina conditions in the Pacific transistioning to neutral. A weak El Nino condition may arise later this year.
El Nino is a warming in the eastern Pacific Ocean that can have such far-reaching effects as changing wind patterns in the eastern Atlantic, which can disrupt the formation of hurricanes. A La Nina is a cooling of the same eastern Pacific region.
The current estimate is 12 named storms lasting 55 days. There will be 6 hurricanes lasting 25 days. Two of these hurricanes will be intense (Category 3-4-5) lasting 5 days.
Also forecast was an average probability for one major hurricane (Category 3-4-5) making landfall on the following each of the following costal areas:
Entire U.S. coastline: 54%
U.S. East Coast including Florida peninsula: 32%
Gulf Coast; Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, TX: 30%