2018 turns out to be an above-average hurricane season

The 2018 hurricane season ended up slightly above average – more active than was predicted by the CSU Tropical Meteorology Project forecast team’s later updates issued in June, July and August. Of most note during the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season were Hurricanes Florence and Michael, which brought death and destruction to the Carolinas and Florida Panhandle and other parts of the southeastern United States, respectively.

“The 2018 Atlantic hurricane season was above-average for numbers of named storms and hurricanes, and near-normal for the number of major (Category 3+ on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) hurricanes. Overall, our first seasonal forecast issued in early April verified quite well, while updates issued in June, July and August underestimated Atlantic hurricane activity,” said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of the forecast. Seasonal Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) was approximately 140 percent of the 1981-2010 median. Much of the activity that occurred during the season occurred outside of the tropics. Six of the 15 named storms that formed in 2018 were initially classified as sub-tropical.

The report summarizes all tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin during the 2018 hurricane season and compares the team’s seasonal and two-week forecasts to what occurred.

Read the full Source article, “Researchers under-predicted a slightly above-average 2018 Atlantic hurricane season.”