Yep… Hurricane season is upon us again…

With the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season a few hours away, researcher William Gray released his newest forecast Thursday still showing an expectation for 17 named storms and nine hurricanes, five of them intense.

Gray, based at Colorado State University, described it as a very active season. He said there was a 74 percent chance of a major hurricane making landfall somewhere on the U.S. coast.

There is a 50 percent chance of a major hurricane making landfall on the East Coast, including the Florida Peninsula, according to the new forecast; the long-term average is 31 percent.

The chance of a major hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast between the Florida Panhandle and Brownsville, Texas, is 49 percent; the long-term average is 30 percent. There is also an above-average chance of a major hurricane making landfall in the Caribbean, according to the forecast.

They made the same predictions last year. Thankfully, WINS actually points out that last year, when they made those same predictions, it was a historically quiet year:

The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, averages 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes per year.

There were 10 named Atlantic storms last year and five hurricanes, two of them major. None of the hurricanes hit the U.S. Atlantic coast.

None.

Zero.

Zip.

Zilch.

Nada.

And last year was supposed to be huge. In the post-Katrina world, that seems to be the MO. Scare people shitless, predict disaster, and then just move along and do the same next year despite being completely, totally, and utterly wrong the prior year. Kinda like Katrina truthers.

via 1010 WINS