Colorado State University’s hurricane forecast team is predicting an above-average season for the Atlantic basin in 2010, which includes all tropical storms and hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
The forecast calls for 15 named tropical storms, of which eight will become hurricanes. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when its sustained wind speeds surpass 74 mph. Of those eight, four are expected to develop into major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5) with maximum wind speeds of 111 mph or greater.
Looking at averages that go back to 1950, a typical Atlantic hurricane season sees 10 named storms — six of them hurricanes, with two major.