At this rate.....

Hurricane forecaster William Gray may finally get his guesswork right.

DENVER (AP) -- Hurricane forecaster William Gray downgraded his expectations for the 2006 Atlantic storm season Friday, calling for a slightly below-average year, with only five hurricanes instead of the seven previously forecast.

Two of the hurricanes will be intense, according to Gray's forecasting team, based at Colorado State University.

Oh intense like Ernesto was supposed to be but wasn't.

"Despite the lower predictions, residents living along the U.S. coastline should always be prepared for major storms," Gray said.

Also be prepared for blabbering experts who pass their guesses off as news. I blame the MSM as much for printing this bs as I do Gray.

His team predicted a 59 percent likelihood that a hurricane would hit the U.S. coastline in September, and a 35 percent chance of an intense hurricane. For October, the forecasters said there was a 14 percent chance a hurricane would strike the coast.

That's probably in line with historic hurricane patterns. Early to mid-September is considered the peak of hurricane season.

The new forecast was the second time the team had downgraded its expectations in the span of a month.

Here is the original guess of Dr. Gray and then his revised guess of last August.

Last spring, Gray's team called for 17 named storms to form in the Atlantic basin during the June through November hurricane season. They lowered that to 15, and then to 13 in their latest forecast. As of Friday, five named storms had formed, including Ernesto, which briefly became the season's first hurricane last week and was moving through North Carolina and Virginia on Friday as a tropical depression.

Five sounds the high end reasonable to me at this point. What ever happened to those who said these hurricanes are caused by global warming. Are those experts wrong about hurricanes being connected to GW or does GW not even exist but in the imaginations of some scientists?

Oh and does anyone from AP want to come over and hear my hurricane expertise too?

Linked to- Bright & Early, Right Wing Nation, Stuck on Stupid,