Forecast of Atlantic hurricane activity 2006

Everyone is putting up their rates and decreasing their exposure in relation to hurricane activity in the Atlantic (see, for example, references to both Hiscox and Chaucer in this Telegraph article).

A good thing too if the Benfields-sponsored Hazard Research Centre, based at UCL, is right. Their latest (6 March 2006) forecast for the coming months (no direct link) contains the following synopsis:

The TSR (Tropical Storm Risk) March forecast update for Atlantic hurricane activity in 2006 continues to anticipate an active season to high probability. Based on current and projected climate signals, Atlantic basin and US landfalling tropical cyclone activity are forecast to be close to 40% above the 1950-2005 norm in 2006. There is a high (~74%) likelihood that activity will be in the top one-third of years historically. [emphasis added]

Professor Mark Saunders, of the Centre, says that they are currently predicting 15 tropical storms this season, of which 8 will be hurricanes and, of those, 4 will be intense.

Now if, as someone told me the other day, they are only rebuilding the levees in New Orleans to withstand a Cat 3 storm, that rather tends to indicate that moving back to the Big Easy any time within the next 50 years may not be the most prudent move.

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NB. I am not sure if the Telegraph article referenced above has really got the story right. They write in rather awestruck tones of a Category 1 hurricane hitting the US mainland, but while this is not to be sneezed at, it is not that powerful. What you really want to worry about are a couple of Cat 4s hitting, say, Miami and Galveston.