2013 Hurricane Forecast: 18 Storms, 4 Major Hurricanes

The first prediction about the upcoming 2013 Hurricane Season says this year should be similar to the 2012 Hurricane Season.

A team from Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Science say the Atlantic basin can expect as many as 18 named storms, with at least four of them growing to major hurricane status this year, Huffington Post reports.

Major hurricanes, considered Category 3 or higher, have sustained winds of at lest 111 mph. During the 2012 Hurricane Season a total of 19 named storms developed, of those nine reached hurricane strength.

One of the driving factors behind the 2013 forecast is the expected lack of an El Nino weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean. During years when the El Nino weather pattern is present more moisture is dumped into the Atlantic basin from the Pacific Ocean fostering stronger tropical storm formation trends.

The Colorado State researchers say there is a 72 percent chance that a major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) could make landfall somewhere along the country's Atlantic coastline. Along the Gulf of Mexico coast, there is a 47 percent chance of landfall.

The National Hurricane Center issues its first hurricane season forecast toward the end of May.

The name of one of 2012's most devastating storms, Sandy, is being retired by the World Meteorological Organization’s hurricane committee because of the extreme impacts it caused from Jamaica and Cuba to the Mid-Atlantic United States in October 2012, according to a NOAA statement. Sandy is the 77th Atlantic Hurricane name be retired.

Storm names are reused every six years unless they are selected for retirement. In 2018 the name Sara will replace Sandy in the list of storm names for that cycle.