MIAMI - The Atlantic hurricane season may produce two more hurricanes in October, adding to what is already one of the busiest and most destructive seasons on record, a noted forecaster predicted on Monday.
Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, who has had some success predicting hurricane frequency in the past, said in a monthly forecast update that October should produce three tropical storms, which would take the season total to 21 and tie the record for a single season set in 1933.
Tropical Storm Stan, which formed on Sunday, was the 18th storm of the season. It hit the Yucatan Peninsula and was moving through the Bay of Campeche on Monday toward a second landfall on the Mexican coast on Wednesday.
The Atlantic season has already brought misery to the US Gulf of Mexico coast, where hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Rita displaced hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and disrupted Gulf oil rigs and refineries.
Risk analysts have estimated that Katrina, which caused the levees protecting New Orleans to fail, will be the costliest hurricane in US history.
Gray said two of the three October storms would become hurricanes, one of which would be a major hurricane with winds over 110 mph (177 kph). The season has already seen five major hurricanes, double the long-term average for a season.
The average Atlantic season produces about 10 storms, of which about six become hurricanes and two to three turn into major hurricanes.
There was a 49 percent chance of a tropical storm or hurricane hitting the US coast in October, compared to a long-term average of 29 percent, the CSU report said.
Gray said the factors that have contributed to recent busy hurricane seasons, including warmer Atlantic sea surface temperatures, lower surface pressures and low wind shear are influencing this season.
But Gray downplayed the impact of human-induced global warming on recent increases in Atlantic activity, which included seven powerful hurricanes that hit the United States in the last 14 months and an upswing in both hurricane frequency and intensity in the last 11 years.
He attributed the increases to "long-period natural climate alterations" that have occurred many times in the past.
"If global warming were the cause ... we would expect to see an increase in tropical cyclone activity in the other storm basins as well, such as in the West Pacific, East Pacific and Indian Ocean basins," he said in a written statement. "This has not occurred."
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
