SST trends over the past couple of months and NCEP projections suggest that 2013 will quickly evolve into an ENSO neutral year. SSTs are expected to be above normal in the western Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea for all but the latter part of the 2013 hurricane season.

The best analog years, 1968 and 2006, hint at a season of below normal activity, however, the warmer than normal SST expectations should increase the activity to more of a normal season. An above normal level of activity no longer seems as likely as it did in January. With those somewhat conflicting considerations, I'll lower my initial forecast for the season to 11 named storms, 7 hurricanes with 2 major hurricanes. Other less representative analog years are 1990 and 2001.

CSU will issue their initial numerical forecast on April 10th and TSR will update their initial December outlook on April 5th. You can issue your own guesstimate for the season in this thread anytime between now and the start of the 2013 season on June 1st - and update your numbers as often as you wish.
ED