Colorado State predicts ‘extremely active’ hurricane season

Researchers at Colorado State University on Wednesday upgraded their forecast for the 2020 Atlantic season to “extremely active” from “very active.”

The researchers in the department of atmospheric science at CSU in Fort Collins, Colorado, said in a report that they expect 24 named storms to form this year, including the nine named storms that have already formed, which is an increase of four from its previously updated forecast in early July.

CSU expects 12 of the storms to reach hurricane status and five to become major hurricanes of categories 3, 4 or 5.

The probability of a major hurricane making landfall in the United States this year is 74% compared with the full-season average of 52% for the past century, the report said.

Sea surface temperatures are much warmer than normal and wind shear is weaker than normal, which “point to a high likelihood of an extremely active hurricane season in 2020,” the report said.

So far in 2020, Hurricane Hanna made landfall in Texas on July 25 and Hurricane Isaias made landfall in North Carolina on Aug. 3. Both were Category 1 hurricanes.