forecast you mean?
there were sixteen named storms in 2003, and it wasnt a 'really bad' season because only isabel and claudette hit the us as hurricanes and they were 1/2 range at the time. several big ones, but they did the usual recurve or weaken routines before hitting. we can have sixteen storms again, and if there isn't a charley or hugo type storm in the mix then.. well, so what. the low number of hits we've had in the active span since 1995 contrasts very well against the historic averages for the number of major hits we'd expect given a certain number of storms.. but looking back to the 19th century the number of hits and the fact that they picked on more of the u.s. coastline, along with some strong hurricanes hitting earlier than we usually would expect nowadays. i dunno, the perspective i have is that 2004 was bad, but all it takes is a slow season with one good solid hit in just the right place and we get a nightmare scenario, or a repeat today of some historic season activity that we haven't seen in decades or even in the last century that could easily eclipse 2004.
i get sort of irritated seeing the news columns today, all the networks poorly masking their chance to scare-monger behind the release of the noaa forecast. any season could be worse than 2004, with less storms even, if they just hit in the right places or don't spin down on their landfall runs. but then again it would be just like most every year recently, with a hell of a lot of storms and hardly any that come calling. don't anyone follow the media misconstruing the official takes saying that they 'expect that things will be worse than 2004', because we're still months from the core of the season, and its those aug-oct storms that almost always matter most.
worthy mention that SOI is way negative again, and the tropics have responded with strong backing (notice the low level flow in the eastpac is out of the west). if it were jamming all the way to the caribbean we'd have some serious cyclogenesis trying to take place, but the best we can do with the chaotic surface pattern over much of the region is have a bunch of disconnected vorticity along the itcz and rim of the subtropical jet... e.g. a couple of weak gyres in the eastpac and caribbean. models still trying to brew up lows from 60w to 100w, but they keep meandering between runs, and nothing consistent has materialized yet in the numerical models or real world. the jet has lifted enough so that a system could actually organize at low latitudes, but all of the forcing and evacuating seems to be along the jet rim, and at the edges of the ridge (backing in the eastpac and the easterlies in the atlantic are feeding convection near puerto rico and south of the tehuantepec, but not in the sweet spot north of panama). the pattern generating all the disturbed weather continues, though, and given time and pressure something may yet organize out of all this. the eastpac disturbance looks fine enough, but it's at such a latitude and so involved in the itcz that it won't focus energy quickly.. mind only if it breaks loose and starts NE like the global progs seem to suggest. as for the caribbean side, there's still nothing getting busy developing, just a bunch of playing around. i'm sure luis wishes the playing would stop. sorry brother, maybe after the rainy season.
'nuff o that rambling. i should post when i'm at least half awake. do forgive.
HF 0615z17may