HF you've got a great sense of humor - thanks, I needed that! Speaking of numbers, why is it that every seasonal forecast is always from 9 to 16 named storms, every year? You never seem to see a forecast from 3 to 7 - sometimes 8. I'll bet that if you had a W+ El Nino in the second quarter (April, May, June) and a frigid tropical Atlantic (probably no such thing), you'd still have a pre-season forecast range from 7 to 11. I can't recall the last time that I saw a forecast (my own included) when the numbers were 4 or 5 or 6 - yet those types of seasons do happen from time to time. Maybe its just refusing to accept what the science might be telling us. Probably just a matter of trying to forecast something which really cannot be forecasted with any consistent accuracy. Anyway, it certainly makes for a good challenge each year