74% chance in 2007 of major hurricane making landfall

The 2007 hurricane season is likely going to be “very active,” with landfall probabilities well above their long-period averages.

This is largely due to the rapid dissipation of El Nino conditions, according to researchers at the Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

The researchers say the probability of at least one major (Category 3-5) hurricane reaching landfall on the U.S. coastline is 74%, comp- ared to an average of 52% for the last century.

“We estimate that 2007 will have about nine hurricanes (average is 5.9), 17 named storms (average is 9.6), 85 named storm days (average is 49.1), 40 hurricane days (average is 24.5), five intense (Category 3-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 11 intense hurricane days (average is 5),” writes department researcher Dr. William Gray.

Researchers are hesitating to link the potentially active season to global warming or climate change, explaining that Atlantic hurricanes go through “multi-decadal cycles.”

“This active cycle is expected to continue for another decade or two, at which time we should enter a quieter Atlantic major hurricane period like we experienced during the quarter century periods of 1970-1994 and 1901-1925,” Gray predicts.