2020 Hurricane Forecast Predicts ‘Above-Normal’ Season With up to 4 Major Hurricanes

Two months from now the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season will officially begin, meteorologists from AccuWeather have already started examining the factors that can influence tropical activity for this year. Forecasters are anticipating a busy year for the Atlantic Basin in 2020, which is on the heels of an active 2019 season.

AccuWeather top hurricane expert and meteorologist, Dan Kottlowski, just released the 2020 Atlanta and hurricane forecast. Along with this team, they are calling for 14 to 18 tropical storms during the upcoming season, which will run from June 1st through November 30th, 2020. Of those storms, they are expecting 7 to 9 to become hurricanes, and 2 to 4 are predicted to strengthen into major hurricanes. According to Kottlowski, “It’s going to be an above-normal season. In a normal year, we have around 12 storms, six hurricanes, and roughly three major hurricanes.”

Last year marked the four consecutive years of above-average activity in the basin, tying in 1969 for the fourth most active hurricane active season on record. Featuring, Hurricane Dorian, Lorenzo, and Humberto as well as Tropical storm Imelda, the 2019 season resulted in 18 storms and cost more than $11 billion in heavy damages. Most significantly, the damage affected North Carolina leaving severe damage to the coastal and central regions.

Forecasters have also drawn comparisons to previous years with comparable weather conditions, also known as analog years as part of the method to formulate this season’s predictions. For 2020, AccuWeather meteorologists are looking closely at the years 1980 and 2005.

Back in 1980, Hurricane Allen developed a category 5 storm, which wreaked havoc on Haiti before moving over to lower Texas which killed more than 200 people. The expert stated 2005 was a “hyperactive year,” which resulted in 28 storms. There were so many storms in 2005 that the predetermined list of names for the season was heavily surpassed and the last few storms took on Greek letters as names Which were set by the World Meteorologist Organization.

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