Island Climate Update tropical cyclone outlook

Tropical cyclone seasonal forecasting is the process of predicting the number of tropical cyclones in one of the world's seven tropical cyclone basins during a particular tropical cyclone season. In the north Atlantic Ocean, one of the most widely publicized annual predictions comes from the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University. These reports are written by Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray.

Since 1984, Dr William M. Gray and his associates at the Colorado State University has issued a seasonal forecast, that has aimed to predict the number of tropical storms and hurricanes that will develop within the Atlantic basin during the upcoming season amongst other factors. The forecasts were initially issued ahead of time for June and August.

After the active 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Dr Gray decided to allow Philip J. Klotzbach to take the primary responsibility for the project’s seasonal, monthly and landfall probability forecasts effective with the first forecast for the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season.

Ahead of each season several national meteorological services issue forecasts of how many tropical cyclones will form during a season and/or how many tropical cyclones will affect a particular country. Examples include the United Kingdom's Met Office which issues a "seasonal forecast".  in May/June of the number of tropical storms for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, while the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Service tries to predict how many tropical cyclones will move into its area of responsibility.

In August 1998, the United States Climate Prediction Center in conjunction with the National Hurricane Center and the Hurricane Research Division issued a tropical cyclone outlook, which accurately predicted that there would be an above-normal number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic between August and October. The NOAA centres subsequently started to issue an outlook that gave a general guide to the expected overall activity within the Atlantic Ocean.

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