Hurricane Season: You Can Officially Assume The Worst

Let the worrying begin!

​That weather disturbance out in the Atlantic is now considered unlikely to become Tropical Storm Alex. So we can all relax, right?

No. The fact that we're even talking about a tropical disturbance there, at this point in the season, is oh so ominous, according to the experts.

Everyone's predicting a heavy hurricane season, of course. And 'Non-Alex" is being taken as a sign that the predictions will come true.

A sampling:

@jimcantore What's scary about soon to be "ALEX", is the RARITY of it that far east in the Atlantic so early in the season. TS Ana in '79 formed @ 45W

Max Mayfield: A quick search of the historical record going back to 1851 shows that only two tropical storms have formed in the deep tropics east of the Caribbean during the month of June. Clearly, it is an extremely rare event for this to happen.

Eric Berger pf the Houston Chronicle: I will say, however, that if we're seeing named storms develop out of African waves at this early of a date, the predictions of a very active season are looking spot on

Stan Blazyk, Galveston County Daily News the sudden burst of activity in the tropics is somewhat worrisome. In particular, the emergence of two strong waves off the West African coast within a week may be an indicator the the busy tropical season that many have predicted. Generally, very active seasons are characterized by higher than normal rainfall in the Sahel region of West Africa and by the presence of strong tropical waves emerging into the far eastern Atlantic. For this to begin so early in the season is some cause for concern for sure

And the guys at Tropical Storm Risk have weighed in with their bit of doom and gloom:

The TSR (Tropical Storm Risk) June forecast update for Atlantic hurricane activity in 2010 anticipates a very active hurricane season to high probability. Based on current and projected climate signals, Atlantic basin and US landfalling tropical cyclone activity are forecast to be about 80% above the 1950-2009 norm in 2010. There is a high (85-90%) likelihood that activity will be in the top one-third of years historically

So enjoy the summer!

And, ummm, get some bottled water or something.