Sick of all the hurricanes yet? There may be a lot more on the way.
Colorado State University's Tropical Meteorology Project issued a new forecast Tuesday predicting a busy September for the Caribbean, Gulf coast and southeastern Atlantic coastline.
"Our September-only forecast calls for five named storms, four hurricanes, two major hurricanes and NTC [Net Tropical Cyclone] activity of 90 which is well above the September-only average value of 48," says the report, co-authored by CSU researcher Philip J. Klotzbach and his former mentor, professor emeritus William M. Gray.
Klotzbach and Gray define major hurricanes as Category 3 and over.
Hurricane Gustav, currently soaking the central Gulf region, hit Category 4 when it was moving over the Gulf of Mexico but has since been downgraded to a tropical depression.
Because Gustav and its successor Hanna, which is hovering over the Bahamas and was just downgraded to a tropical storm, both formed in August, they don't count as any of the four predicted hurricanes.
Tropical Storm Ike, however, formed Monday, Sept. 1 and likely will be a hurricane by the time it his the northern Caribbean this coming weekend.
Close behind that is Tropical Storm Josephine, which was officially named midday Tuesday when its sustained winds reached a speed greater than 39 miles per hour.
"We continue to anticipate that the 2008 Atlantic basin tropical cyclone (TC) season will be much more active than the average 1950-2000 season," write
Klotzbach and Gray.
• Click here to read the Colorado State report (pdf).
• Click for tracking maps and satellite images at MyFoxHurricane.com.
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