Forecast: Hurricane season to lighten up

FORT COLLINS, Colo., Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Long-range hurricane forecaster William Gray and his team at Colorado State University is predicting a more quiet finish to the storm season.

The forecast for October called for only three more named storms, two hurricanes and no intense hurricanes. As encouraging as that is this year, it is still slightly above the long-term average for October.

Gray and his deputy, Philip Klotzbach, expect little activity in November, the last month of the hurricane season.

Three major hurricanes, a Category 2 hurricane and a tropical storm have hit the Florida coast already this season.

"It is not the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin that has been so unusual, but rather the rare combination of high hurricane activity and very favorable surrounding hurricane steering conditions that drove so many storms from the deep tropics across Florida in such a short time period," Gray said.

"This year has been a once-in-a-lifetime kind of year," he said. "Although Floridians should always be prepared for landfalling hurricanes, they should not expect what we have experienced this year to become the norm for future years."