US forecasters predict record hurricanes for 7th straight year

Federal meteorologists in the United States are forecasting another record-shattering Atlantic hurricane season, for the seventh consecutive year. This hurricane season “is going to be similar to last year and given that you need only one bad storm to dramatically affect your life, if you fail to plan around this outlook, you’re planning to fail,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “You can take this outlook to the bank, literally, when it looks to protecting your property.” NOAA’s predictions for an above-average storm season follow 10 other meteorological teams — government, university and private — that have made their hurricane season forecasts. Last year’s 21 named Atlantic storms cost about $80.6bn in insured damages in the US, with Hurricane Ida, a category 4 hurricane when it struck Louisiana on the US southern Gulf coast and then continued to bring winds and flooding all the way to New York in the northeast. A tropical storm brings sustained winds of at least 63 kph, a hurricane has winds of at least 119 kph and major hurricanes pack winds of at least 179 kph and can bring devastating damage.