The emergence of a La Niña weather pattern and warmer tropical waters could lead to an “extremely active” 2024 hurricane season, according to researchers at Colorado State University who issued their first hurricane season outlook of the year on Thursday. Colorado State’s outlook marks the first widely recognized hurricane forecast of the season and comes out more than a month before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issues their seasonal outlook.
Colorado State University’s annual hurricane outlook, which is considered an authority in hurricane forecasts, has been published every April since 1995. This year’s hurricane outlook has the highest number of hurricanes ever projected in April, said Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist and Atlantic basin seasonal forecast specialist at Colorado State.
“The team cites record warm tropical and eastern subtropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures as a primary factor for their prediction of 11 hurricanes this year,” researchers said in a statement.
Here’s how the numbers look and why this season is expected to be so active.
The number of named systems, which includes tropical storms, is forecast to be 23. Of that number, 11 are expected to become hurricanes and 5 of those could become major hurricanes, which are Category 3 or stronger. Major hurricanes bring wind speeds of at least 111 mph and often lead to the most costly damage.
This forecast is quite a bit higher than what the 30-year average from 1991 to 2020 shows. The projected number of named storms is nearly 9 more than average, with the number of expected hurricanes being roughly four more than average.
We’ve already had a couple of other forecasts saying similar things. The folks at Colorado State had a good track record, so their outlook is always anticipated. The main takeaway from this is not that you need to panic but that you should be prepared, in all the ways you should normally be prepared. We’ll deal with what comes as best we can. The Eyewall has more.