It’s here. The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on Saturday, June 1.

Hope you are ready for it, because it could be very active.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued its pre-season hurricane forecast for the Atlantic basin (including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean) last week, and it included the highest number of storms ever included in a NOAA May outlook (see the outlook at the top of this post).

CPC forecasters are expecting 17-25 named storms (the average is 14), eight to 13 hurricanes (the average is seven) and four to seven major hurricanes (the average is three).

The forecast included an 85 percent probability that the Atlantic hurricane season would have an above-average number of storms.

The Climate Prediction Center isn’t the only group forecasting a busy season. Many other hurricane forecasters are predicting the same thing, including Colorado State University, which also is seeing the potential for a “hyperactive” season.

“I think we were all anticipating an above-normal season,” said Jessica Chace, the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mobile. “Having an 85 percent chance is a pretty big deal.”

There are several factors that play into the forecast. One is the expected emergence of the climate phenomenon of La Nina, she said.

La Nina is the periodic cooling of ocean waters in the central and east-central Pacific near the equator. Those cooler waters can spark worldwide climate changes.

“La Ninas are more prevalent in above-normal seasons because we don’t have as much wind shear to disrupt hurricanes,” Chace said.

The other big clue about the 2024 season is ocean temperatures.

“We are running about two to three months ahead on sea surface temperatures, and not only that, the depth of the ocean heat content is above normal,” she said.

“Looking at those observations … we are about where we usually are in August, that’s our climatological peak in the Atlantic basin, August and September.”

Here are Atlantic sea surface temperatures as of May 29. Many forecasters think 80 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 27 degrees Celsius) is the benchmark for tropical development, and many spots are already there — or warmer.

Chace said that so far forecasters aren’t seeing anything that could torpedo the forecast for this season.

“There’s really nothing that’s indicating things that will disrupt that development and strengthening,” Chace said.

So that naturally leads to questions about how many storms will affect the Gulf of Mexico. Will a hurricane hit Alabama? And there is no way to accurately answer that at this point.

“We don’t have any way to strictly pinpoint the different locations,” Chace said. “What we don’t know are the locations of high pressure systems and low pressure systems in real time, and those are going to be the driving factors of where these systems will go. So without knowing the placement of the tropical ridge or the Bermuda high or things like that, it’s difficult to really say what we are looking at for the Gulf itself.”

The Climate Prediction Center’s hurricane outlook doesn’t predict landfalls, it just predicts the number of named storms, so it’s difficult to pinpoint specific geographic locations, she added.

What’s a Gulf Coast resident to do with that knowledge?

Don’t worry, but go ahead and get ready now, Chace said.

“What we always like to say is regardless of the seasonal outlook, all it takes is that one storm impacting Alabama for it to be a big season for us,” she said.

“So take the time now while it’s not active to go ahead and start preparing. That’s the key, we want people to be prepared, not panicked.”

Having supplies and a plan in place now, at the start of the season when it’s typically less active, will save you additional stress if a storm does head this way.

One of the most important things that coastal residents can do right now is learn their evacuation zones, Chace said.

(See Mobile and Baldwin County evacuation zones here.)

“For those along the coast or those going to the beach this season … knowing the evacuation zones is going to be the most important thing,” she said.

“We like to say ‘run from the water, hide from the wind.’ So those evacuations are driven by the storm surge zones. Just because you can’t see the white sand or the ocean doesn’t mean you don’t have a threat for storm surge. So making sure that people know what their evacuation zone is is incredibly important.”

And also note that you don’t have to travel hundreds of miles away when you evacuate, she added.

“We just want people to get outside of that storm surge zone. That’s where a lot of the fatalities occur with those tropical systems because it happens so rapidly that a lot of times we don’t have a way to run from (storm surge) after it has started,” she said.

The National Hurricane Center, in the event of a landfalling system with the potential for storm surge, will put out a forecast highlighting areas that potentially could see the most surge.

Here is an example from 2023′s Hurricane Idalia:

The Atlantic hurricane season will run from June 1 until Nov. 30.

Activity is typically slower in June and begins to tick upwards in July. The climatological peak of the Atlantic season falls on Sept. 10:

Here are the 2024 storms names for the Atlantic: