Experts slightly scale back Atlantic hurricane season forecast
TALLAHASSEE - Experts at Colorado State University slightly scaled back their forecast for the already active Atlantic storm season, a day after Hurricane Debby, now a tropical storm, made landfall in North Florida.
The university's Department of Atmospheric Science on Tuesday reduced from 25 to 23 the number of named storms it expects during the season, which started June 1 and will end Nov. 30. The department, however, did not change its prediction of the season producing 12 hurricanes, with six reaching Category 3 or higher status to qualify as major storms.
"Sea surface temperatures averaged across the hurricane main development region of the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean remain near record warm levels," the department said in an online post. "Extremely warm sea surface temperatures provide a much more conducive dynamic and thermodynamic environment for hurricane formation and intensification."
All four tropical cyclones in the Atlantic this year have become named storms. Hurricane Beryl, which affected Texas and Louisiana, had winds that peaked at 165 mph while in the Caribbean near Jamaica. Debby was a Category 1 hurricane when it made landfall Monday morning near Steinhatchee, before causing large amounts of rain across North Florida.
On Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center was watching an area of showers and thunderstorms associated with a tropical wave that was moving west in the east-central Caribbean. The system was expected to slowly develop over the next couple of days.