A Busy Hurricane Season is Expected. Here's How It Will Be Different From the Last

An anonymous reader shares a report: Yet another busy hurricane season is likely across the Atlantic this year -- but some of the conditions that supercharged storms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 have waned, according to a key forecast issued Thursday.

A warm -- yet no longer record-hot -- strip of waters across the Atlantic Ocean is forecast to help fuel development of 17 named tropical cyclones during the season that runs from June 1 through Nov. 30, according to Colorado State University researchers. Of those tropical cyclones, nine are forecast to become hurricanes, with four of those expected to reach 'major' hurricane strength.

That would mean a few more tropical storms and hurricanes than in an average year, yet slightly quieter conditions than those observed across the Atlantic basin last year. This time last year, researchers from CSU were warning of an 'extremely active' hurricane season with nearly two dozen named tropical storms. The next month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an aggressive forecast, warning the United States could face one of its worst hurricane seasons in two decades.

The forecast out Thursday underscores how warming oceans and cyclical patterns in storm activity have primed the Atlantic basin for what is now a decades-long string of frequent, above-normal -- but not necessarily hyperactive -- seasons, said Philip Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at Colorado State and the forecast's lead author.

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