By The News Service of Florida
AccuWeather has again changed its forecast for the Atlantic storm season to include “the possibility of zero hurricanes forming this season.
With the season entering its final two months, the meteorological company on Tuesday pointed to “strengthening Super El Niño conditions” that are “increasingly suppressing tropical development.”
“There is an increasingly likely scenario in which the Atlantic season ends without a single hurricane for the first time in more than a century,” AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva said in a released statement. “All of this despite sea surface temperatures being the second warmest on record for the North Atlantic basin this season.”
The last time the Atlantic went a season without a storm reaching hurricane strength – 74 mph sustained winds – was in 1914.
So far this year, there have been eight named storms, including Tropical Storm Hanna, which as of Wednesday sat far east of Bermuda with 40 mph maximum sustained winds.
Before the season started June 1, AccuWeather forecast between 11 and 16 named storms. As the season progressed, the numbers were revised to 8- to 14-named storms of which four to seven will grow into hurricanes.
AccuWeather isn’t the only forecaster to have made downward revisions since the season began.
In August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration raised the chance of below-normal activity from 55 percent, when its initial forecast was made in May, to 75 percent.
NOAA also dropped its predicted named storms to between seven and 13, down from eight to 14 storms when it released its initial forecast in May.
Also in August, Colorado State University researchers further reduced their projections for the number of named systems, including the odds of landfalls.
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