Subject: revised hurricane forecast
new hurricane forecast out of csu
renowned hurricane soothsayer dr . william gray and his team at colorado state
university have
scaled back their forecast for the hurricane season but still expect the
season to be more active than
average . seven rather than eight hurricanes are expected now and only three
of them are expected
to be intense rather than the four expected in the group ' s prior forecast on
june 7 . in round numbers ,
the august forecast is for three named storms , two hurricanes , and one
intense or major hurricane .
" information obtained through july 2000 indicates that the atlantic hurricane
season in 2000 is likely
to be less active than the four recent very busy years of 1995 , 1996 , 1998
and 1999 . however , total
activity is expected to exceed the long term average and is anticipated to be
considerably more
active than the mean for the recent period of 1970 through 1994 .
" we estimate that the 2000 season will have seven hurricanes ( average is
5 . 7 ) , 11 named storms
( average is 9 . 3 ) , 55 named storm days ( average is 47 ) , 30 hurricane days
( average is 24 ) , three
intense ( category 3 - 4 - 5 ) hurricanes ( average is 2 . 2 ) , six intense hurricane
days ( average is 4 . 7 ) and
a hurricane destruction potential ( hdp ) of 90 ( average is 71 ) . collectively ,
net tropical cyclone
activity in year 2000 is expected to be about 130 % of the long term average .
the early august forecast update is in close to gray ' s dec . 8 , 1999 ) and
april 7 forecasts , but
somewhat lower than his recent june 7 update . " the forecast has been lowered
slightly [ because ]
june - july global circulation conditions have not progressed quite as
favorably for hurricane
enhancement than as we anticipated in our early june forecast , " gray said .