Colorado State forecasters: above-average 2011 atlantic hurricane season

Colorado State University have just issued their updated 2011 Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season forecast, so in the interest of fairness (as we’ve already covered Accuweather’s and Tropical Storm Risk’s) here are the details.

Klotzbach & Gray at Colorado State University have a similar accuracy record with their forecasts to the other forecasters we tend to mention. This is the 28th year that a forecast team from Colorado has issued a seasonal hurricane forecast. For the 2011 season they predict an above-average season with 16 named storms, with 9 reaching hurricane status and 5 developing into category 3 and above severe hurricanes with sustained winds above 111mph.

The forecast details the following landfall probabilities:

• A 72 percent chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall on the U.S. coastline in 2011 (the long-term average probability is 52 percent).
• A 48 percent chance that a major hurricane will make landfall on the U.S. East Coast, including the Florida Peninsula (the long-term average is 31 percent).
• A 47 percent chance that a major hurricane will make landfall on the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle west to Brownsville (the long-term average is 30 percent).
• They also predicts a 61 percent chance of a major hurricane tracking into the Caribbean (the long-term average is 42 percent).

The full forecast from Colorado State can be downloaded in PDF format here.

Like Tropical Storm Risk, this latest forecast from Colorado State is slightly reduced from their forecast in December. However, they too see a higher risk of landfalling storms in 2011, something which all the major research centres seem to agree on.