Hurricane Season Starts...for the Pacific

Not many people know this, but today marks the beginning of the hurricane season for the Eastern Pacific.  Coincidentally, there is a tropical storm spiraling over 600 miles southwest of the Mexican border.  The tropical storm named Aletta won't do much to leave an impression on the U.S. or the meteorology community for that matter.

Yet, this does shed light on the next cycle in our weather pattern - hurricane season.  I may be jumping the gun here talking about the tropics but our spring storm season hasn't amounted to much.  I mean the upper level jet stream has straddled the northern border for numerous weeks and the lack of strong disturbances is quite odd for this time, so why not focus on the tropics briefly...

Looking ahead, I glanced at several resources (water tempreature, ENSO cycles, etc..) and a couple hurricane forecasts posted from the Colorado State University.  Generally speaking, the Atlantic Hurricane Season looks average to below average.

The meteorologists who cheer for Cam the Ram suggests roughly 10 named storms in the Atlantic and 4 hurricanes taking shape.  In addition to the sub-par numbers, the Colorado State forecast suggest only a 42% of a strong hurricane hitting the U.S. this year.  That's pretty comforting to know this far out.

The basic reasoning behind these numbers lies in the slow rise to an El Niño phase and the prediction of a cooler than normal temperatures around the tropics of the Atlantic.

You know and I know you can't put a lot of stock in these forecasts.  We'll just have to see if we get by another part of the year where we can avoid these weather disasters.  For some reason my gut is telling me we may not be so lucky.