TSR increases hurricane forecast

Modelling firm Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) has revised its outlook for the current Atlantic hurricane season, predicting there will be 13 hurricanes with four making landfall in the US. 

TSR had previously predicted 12 hurricanes with three making landfall in the US. It upped its forecast for named storms from 24 to 26 and held the number of “intense” hurricanes at six.

It also increased its estimate for the average ACE Index, which measures intensity, to 240 from 226. 

TSR issued its forecast after Hurricane Beryl became the third earliest major hurricane to form since records began and also rapidly intensified into a Category 5 storm, causing seven deaths to date and hundreds of millions  worth of damage through the Caribbean. 

Fuelled by warm sea surface temperatures, TSR’s forecast was already well above average for an Atlantic Hurricane season. 

Its most recent forecast compares with ten years averages of an ACE index of 122, 17 named storms, 7.6 hurricanes, 3.4 intense hurricanes and 4.5 tropical storms making landfall in the US and two hurricanes making landfall. 

TSR said the increase in the forecast was driven by warmer than normal sea surface temperatures, weaker trade winds, a weak La Nina weather phenomenon and the early development of tropical storms and hurricanes so far this year.  

TSR said three of the four previous years with similar conditions had resulted in above average hurricane seasons. 

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