2007 Hurricane Season Status, Forecast

UPDATE: I added some of Joe's comments on what storms should have, or should not have been named below, and I clarified the years that the "average" is calculated from.

ORIGINAL POST:

I know if you've clicked on this entry, you're probably thinking I'm going to say the season has been below normal, which we didn't forecast. But, while it's certainly been unexciting, with no major storms hitting land, we are actually above normal for the date. As of yesterday, I show these statistics:*

THROUGH OCTOBER 2ND EXCEPT AVERAGE

We're ahead of average for the entire season so far this year for number of storms, equal on number of major hurricanes, but low on total hurricanes. In an article at CNN, Dr. Gray's team says:

However the article went on to say:

THROUGH OCTOBER 2ND EXCEPT AVERAGE

Compared to last year, we're crushing 2006 for number of storms, but very close for landfalls, hurricanes and major hurricanes. The important thing to remember about last year was that hurricane season closed its doors early, on this very day, October 3, much earlier than average (November 30th) or any recent year.

Forecasters don't think that's going to happen this year, in fact Dr. Gray is predicting another 4 named storms and 2 hurricanes. AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO) agrees, saying in his blog last night:

2005, of course, was the worst Atlantic Tropical season ever, having 28 storms and lasting until January.

Of course, all of this is based on what The NHC defines as a named storm. Joe Bastardi has some words on that as well:

*Statistics were obtained by counting number of storms (including depressions) manually from Unisys, and are subject to error. Landfall was hard to determine, but included landfall on any coastline in the Atlantic. Numbers were "through October 2nd" except for average was ALL-SEASON Named Storms Only taken from rounded Dr. Gray numbers which are based on 1950-2000 (satellite era only, because records before that are almost assuredly too low); no average was available for landfalls.