AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center meteorologists, led by Chief Long-Range and Hurricane Forecaster Joe Bastardi, have released an early hurricane season forecast for 2008. They believe the waning La Niña conditions and a continued warm-water cycle in the Atlantic Basin will be the two defining factors influencing the 2008 hurricane season, causing the number of storms to be slightly above average but, more importantly, increasing the chance for storms hitting landfall in the United States.

“The warming is not uniform across the entire Atlantic," Bastardi said. "In some areas where hurricanes normally form — the central and eastern tropical Atlantic — ocean water temperatures are near or below normal. This should limit the number of storms, so we do not expect a near record high number like in the 2005 season. However, considering other factors, the number of storms should be slightly higher than historical averages. The warmest waters relative to normal will be in the northern areas of the Atlantic, especially toward the North American continent. This could potentially increase the threat of major landfalls to the U.S. coast.

“In determining areas of elevated potential for landfall, we try to understand where the spread of storm tracks will center — but even within this spread, storms can ‘bunch,’ creating discrete areas of increased risk," he said. Last season, the spread of the storms shifted southwest with one such bunch in the northern Caribbean. “This year, early indications show that the spread will move north and east with a target closer to the Southeast U.S.”

Bastardi and the AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center staff are looking at 1950, 1996, and 1999 as a few of the years showing similar weather characteristics to our current large-scale patterns. In October 1950, Hurricane King tracked through the Caribbean making landfall on the southeast coast of Florida. In 1995, Hurricanes Connie and Diane hit North Carolina. During the 1999 hurricane season, Floyd and Dennis made landfall in September on the North Carolina coast.