Will the 2010 Hurricane Season Be the Worst Ever?

(July 23) -- Every year toward the end of May, scientists and residents of the Atlantic coast begin paying a bit closer attention to the ocean than normal, wondering just how bad the next five months will be. That's because June 1 marks the official beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, which stretches until Nov. 30. Of course, hurricanes have also formed before and after these dates, as the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory notes. Still, the relative intensity of the official hurricane season from year to year is always a subject of intense speculation, prognostication and debate.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's online database goes back to 1958, so just how is 2010 expected to stack up against all the 52 years before it? In general, the consensus is that this year's hurricane season will be above the average of 10 named storms and five hurricanes, with a select few sounding the alarm bells that this could be the most active hurricane season yet, even more active than 2005, when a whopping 15 hurricanes were recorded (out of a total 28 tropical cyclones), including, of course, the terribly destructive Hurricane Katrina.

So far in 2010, only one hurricane has formed in the Atlantic, Alex, which caused at least 51 fatalities as it crossed the ocean from the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico. But there's still time for it to get much worse -- the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab reminds readers that hurricane season doesn't peak until September. And Bonnie, though recently downgraded from a tropical storm to a tropical depression, remains in the running.