Dr. William Gray and his research staff at Colorado State University recently updated their 2008 forecast for tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Basin (which includes the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico). They concluded that current conditions in the Atlantic basin are quite favorable for an active hurricane season, as their early April predictors call for a very active hurricane season in 2008. Updating the 2008 forecast first issued in December of 2007, the researchers are now calling for 15 named storms (up from the earlier forecast of 13), 8 hurricanes (up from the previous forecast of 7), and 4 intense hurricanes (up from the previous forecast of 3).

Among the factors cited by the researchers are: (1) the current sea surface temperature pattern in the Atlantic is a pattern typically observed before very active seasons; (2) waters off the coast of Iberia as well as the eastern tropical Atlantic are very warm right now; and the Azores High has also been quite weak during the month of March. Typically, a weakened Azores High leads to weaker trade winds that enhance warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Warm sea surface temperatures are likely to continue being present in the tropical and North Atlantic during 2008, due to the fact that we are in a positive phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) (e.g., a strong phase of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation).