With the arrival of December, we can relax our watch for hurricanes.
"The 2011 hurricane season had above-average tropical cyclone activity but not to the levels that we predicted," said Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray, hurricane researchers at at Colorado State University. "It was notable for having many weak tropical cyclones but only slightly above-average intense tropical cyclone activity."
Graphic copyright and courtesy of WeatherUnderground.
"Our Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts predicted a very active hurricane season," the researchers said. "We slightly under-predicted named storms and named storm days while we over-predicted more intense hurricane activity for the entire Atlantic basin and particularly for the Caribbean."
There were 19 named storms during the season this year. That was the largest number of storms in any year except 2005 (28) and 1933 (21). There were no Category 5 storms, the fourth year in a row without a Cat 5.
The hurricane researchers will issue their forecast for the 2012 hurricane season next week, december 7.