With the formation of Tropical Storm Don in the Main Development Region, the question has been asked, how often have there been two tropical storm formations in the MDR prior to August. According to Tropical Meteorology Project's Philip Klotzbach, there have only been eleven. Not a lot. And only one of those years, 2013, ended up obviously, in fact well below normal.

Here's how those other years with two MDR storms prior to August ended up. I have indicated seasons occurring during the Positive AMO phase with a "+" sign before their respective year, and also placed that respective +AMO year in bold. Question marks have been placed before two years that aren't entirely clear to have been in the positive or negative phase (1901 and 2013), and only one year, 1979, was undeniably in a negative phase.

YEAR - DESCRIPTION - #STORMS - #HURRICANES - #MAJORS

+1887 Hyperactive 19 - 11 - 2

(?) 1901 Near Average 13 - 6 - 0

+1926 Hyperactive 11 - 8 - 6

+1933 Hyperactive 20 - 11 - 6

+1944 Active 14 - 8 - 3

+1966 Active* 11 - 7 - 3

1979 Near Average 9 - 5 - 2

+1995 Hyperactive 19 - 11 - 5

+1996 Hyperactive 13 - 9 - 6

+2005 Hyperactive (Record) 28 - 15 - 7

(?) 2013 Below Average 14 - 2 - 0

An "average" season in the Atlantic basin, based on 1981 - 2010 data, has about 12 Named Storms, 6 Hurricanes, and 3 Majors.

* Despite near-normal season totals, 1966 is being counted active, owing to having had an ACE of 145.