Experts: Everything points to another busy hurricane season

Batten down the hatches for another nasty hurricane season.

Nearly every natural force and a bunch of human-caused ones — more than just climate change — have turned the last several Atlantic hurricane seasons into deadly and expensive whoppers.

The season that starts Wednesday looks like another note in a record-breaking refrain because all those ingredients for disaster are still going strong, experts warn.

They say these factors point to but don't quite promise more trouble ahead: the natural climate event La Nina, human-caused climate change, warmer ocean waters, the Gulf of Mexico's deep hot Loop Current, increased storminess in Africa, cleaner skies, a multi-decade active storm cycle and massive development of property along the coast.

“It's everything and the kitchen sink,” Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said.

In the past two years, forecasters ran out of names for storms.

It's been a costly rogue's gallery of major hurricanes — with winds of at least 111 miles per hour — striking land in the past five years: Harvey, Irma, Maria, Florence, Michael, Dorian, Humberto, Laura, Teddy, Delta, Zeta, Eta, Iota, Grace and Ida.

Graham, echoing most experts and every pre-season forecast, said “we've got another busy one” coming. Last year, the Atlantic set a record for six above average hurricane seasons in a row, smashing the old record of three in a row, and forecasters predict a seventh.

The only contrary sign is that for the first time since 2014, a storm didn't form before the official June 1 start of the hurricane season, but forecasters are watching the Eastern Pacific's record-setting Hurricane Agatha that looks likely to cross over land and reform as Alex in the Gulf of Mexico later this week.

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