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Greetings and good luck with the contest! This year the downstream impacts of a forecast El Niño, if verified, may compete with a tendency for otherwise neutral to possibly very favorable conditions in the Atlantic and make a much larger than normal range of uncertainty in seasonal forecasts. In fact, a strong El Niño could easily bust all forecasts that are presently average to above average, while ENSO nuetral conditions (neither El Niño or La Niña present), could allow for a banger of a season. There's even a real possibility of an El Niño that does not result in the usual downstream windshear, and the UKMET office, which uses a robust "ensemble prediction system based on a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model (GCM)" is calling for just that, with 14-26 Storms, of which 8-14 become Hurricanes, of which 3-7 become Major Hurricanes, with an ACE of 222 despite El Niño! (LINK) My once again slightly updated method I've toyed with over the years comes in at TC/STCs: 15 (Likely range of 10-20) Storms (AKA Names): 13 (Likely range of 8-18) Hurricanes: 6 (Likely range of 4-8) Majors: 3 (Likely range of 2-4) This forecast for total number of "Storms" includes the already unnamed, pre-season Subtropical Storm that NHC found during re-assessment and made public on May 11: NHC Determines That a Subtropical Storm Formed in the Atlantic Basin in Mid-January 2023 Despite my best guess of an "about average" number of of total storms, hurricanes and majors, I see an average to above-average risk of US landfalls. And as always, "it only takes one." 2023 Forecast: 13 Storms, 6 Hurricanes, 3 Majors |