Hurricane Season 2016 has already been a busy one. The season that was forecast to be "average" has already seen four named systems. That has given a lot of us that live in the Gulf South reason to feel a bit uneasy. It's also made some of the nation's foremost hurricane experts change their forecast to include the potential for a greater number of named systems than first thought.

The tropical forecast team at Colorado State University has upped their forecast total for named systems during the 2016 season from 14 named storms to 15 named storms. The reason for the change has been the aforementioned early season activity.

The previous record for the earliest 4th named storm in a season is July 5th, 2005. That is the year we had Katrina and Rita, so hopefully that's not telling us something.

Those are the words of State Climatologist Barry Keim as reported by the Louisiana Radio Network. 

In the revised CSU forecast they are calling for 6 of the named storms to reach hurricane status. Two of those hurricanes are forecast to reach the status of a major hurricane. That is a storm with sustained winds in excess of 111 mph.

Keim suggests in his comments that there are two climatological factors at work in this years tropical season. One is the cooling of the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean. This is called La Nina.

La Ninas tend to lead to more hurricanes, however the North Atlanta Ocean is running cooler than normal which tends to lead to fewer storms.

Only time will tell which weather phenomenon will win out. The peak of the tropical season isn't until September 10th so we are far from out of the woods for this year.  The season will officially conclude on November 30th.

 

More From Hot 107.9