Last year's hurricane season was pretty brutal to many impacted areas, like cities along Florida's Gulf Coast. Colorado State University (CSU) released its predictions for 2023's forecast and people can expect a bit of a relief than the average trends.
According to CSU, Tropical Weather and Climate Researchers believe it will be a "below-average Atlantic hurricane season."
They took the average for 1991-2020 and compared it to their models for this year. The university only predicts two major hurricanes, whereas, the average is slightly above three.
The meteorology team thinks there will be 13 named storms this year and there will only be about 80% activity compared to 1991-2020. However, that doesn't mean locals shouldn't prepare as they normally would.
In 2022, the hurricane activity compared to only 75% of the average season, and Hurricane Ian did some pretty major damage when it made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane.
These natural disasters are expected to make landfall at various levels of probability, that is 44% for the entire U.S. coastline, 22% for the East Coast, including Florida's peninsula, 28% for the Gulf Coast from the Florida panhandle westward to Brownsville, and 49% for the Caribbean.
"The forecast team also provides probabilities of named storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes tracking within 50 miles of each county or parish along the Gulf and US East Coast, as well as hurricane-prone coastal states, Mexican states, Canadian provinces and countries in Central America and the Caribbean," the CSU summary report states.
While these are all just predictions, the researchers note that there is also more uncertainty than usual with their findings.
It is extremely important to continue to prepare for hurricane season as you would annually and take the necessary safety precautions.
