Look for one of those dreaded meteorological words --- hurricanes --- to appear in an outlook story in your newspaper today, even though the season for those storms starts in two months, notes Grumpy Editor.
Since print and broadcast editors relish news on extreme weather, the predictions focusing on the upcoming hurricane season by researchers at Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science should be getting good play, especially in southeastern states.
The hurricane season in the U.S. runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
CSU forecasters see nine of 16 named Atlantic storms this year blossoming into hurricanes, with five of them developing into major ones.
But will any make U.S. landfall?
The CSU team gives a 72 percent chance that at least one hurricane will make it to the U.S. coastline.
Annual predictions by the university's hurricane team are intended to provide a best estimate of activity during the upcoming season rather than an exact forecast.
Last year, despite National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predictions of eight to 14 named Atlantic storms would each hurricane force, not one reached the U.S.
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