Researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) released their updated 2022 hurricane season outlook on Thursday. The forecast largely falls in step with NOAA's updated hurricane season outlook, also released Thursday, in continuing to predict an above-average hurricane season.
Like NOAA's outlook, the CSU outlook slightly reduced the forecast for named storms from 19 to 18. Despite this slight adjustment, the forecast remains well above the climatological average of 14 storms per season. The outlook predicts eight of those storms to become hurricanes, and four of those hurricanes to be major hurricanes. These numbers include the storms that have already formed this year: Alex, Bonnie and Colin. The researchers cite the likely persistence of La Niña as a contributing factor to the expected active season. Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean also continue to average above-normal.
Additional components to the CSU forecast not included in the NOAA outlook are landfall probabilities for major hurricanes. They predict a 68% chance of a landfall on the entire U.S. coastline, a 43% for the Gulf Coast, from the Florida peninsula to Brownsville, Texas, and 43% for the entire U.S. East Coast, including Florida's Atlantic coastline.
CSU researchers remind coastal residents that "it only takes one hurricane" to make landfall in their area to make it an active season for them. They urge residents to prepare as they should do every year, regardless of the forecast. For more information about hurricane preparedness, visit floridadisaster.org.
