Ronny Roger

'Normal' 2012 Hurricane Season Predicted

Andrea Mustain, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer

Date: 24 May 2012 Time: 12:54 PM ET

FOLLOW US

SHARE

The GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Irene on August 27, 2011 at 10:10 a.m. EDT after it made landfall at 8 a.m. in Cape Lookout, North Carolina. Irene's outer bands had already extended into New England. CREDIT: NASA/NOAA GOES Project View full size image

The outlook for the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season is "normal to near-normal," according to researchers who unveiled their predictions for the number and severity of storms likely to spin up over the Atlantic basin in the coming months.
Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency that studies and tracks severe weather, made the announcement at a press conference today in Miami. Hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and ends on Nov. 30, though storms can, and have, formed outside of those dates when conditions were favorable.
The outlook indicates a near-normal season is likely, with a total of nine to 15 named storms for the Atlantic in 2012. (Named storms include tropical storms and hurricanes.) Of those storms, between four and eight are likely to become hurricanes — organized, rotating storms with sustained winds of 74 mph (119 kph) or faster. Between one and three are likely to become major hurricanes, defined as Category 3 storms or above — hurricanes with winds of at least 111 mph (179 mph).

http://www.livescience.com/20561-2012-hurricane-season-forecast.html