MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be "above-average" and produce eight hurricanes, four of them major, the Colorado State University hurricane forecasting team said on Wednesday.
In its second forecast in four months for the 2010 season, the leading storm research team founded by hurricane forecast pioneer William Gray said the six-month season beginning on June 1 would likely see 15 named tropical storms.
The team forecast a 69 percent chance of at least one major hurricane making landfall on the U.S. coastline in 2010, compared with a long-term average probability of 52 percent.
"While patterns may change before the start of the hurricane season, we believe current conditions warrant concern for an above-average season," Gray said in a statement.
The earlier forecast in December by Gray's team had already predicted an "above-average" season producing 11 to 16 tropical storms, including six to eight hurricanes. It had said three to five of next year's storms would become "major" hurricanes of Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.
Another forecaster, AccuWeather.com, last month also forecast a potentially "extreme" hurricane season this year, with "above-normal threats" to the U.S. coastline.
AccuWeather said five hurricanes, two or three of them major, were expected to strike the U.S. coast, forming out of an expected 16 to 18 tropical storms, almost all of them in the western Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.
Major U.S. oil installations are located in the Gulf of Mexico.
The 2009 season ended November 30 had only nine storms, including three hurricanes, and was the quietest since 1997.
(Editing by Tom Brown)
