And there’s no sign the Atlantic is cooling off significantly anytime soon. In fact, Klotzbach said, if the Atlantic warms at the slowest possible rate for the next few months, it would still be one of the top five warmest years in the Atlantic on record.

Another factor that could push this season to new-record territory is the shift in global weather phenomena from El Niño to a potential La Niña. El Niño is usually marked by a less active hurricane season in the Atlantic, thanks to the wind patterns that are more likely to break up storms as they attempt to form.

Last year’s hurricane season included an El Niño, but its storm-dampening effects were overwhelmed by the steamy Atlantic.

Current models from NOAA and beyond call for the still-remaining El Niño effect to die out in the next few months, and the chances that it will be replaced in the peak of hurricane season by a La Niña, which is linked to a friendlier Atlantic for storm formation, are rising by the week.

Another storm metric that stands out in the CSU forecast is ACE, or accumulated cyclonic energy. That’s a measure based on how long a storm stays at the range of hurricane strength categories. With each hurricane, the number rises — an indicator of the strength of the overall season.

This season, CSU calls for a very high ACE of 210, when an average season sees only 123. Compare that to 2020, where we saw 30 named storms, 14 of which became hurricanes, which had an ACE of 179.8. This year’s prediction of 210 still falls below the highest seasonal ACE on record — 250, from 2005.

But in his talk on Thursday, Klotzbach told the crowd CSU’s models showed a potential for up to 269 ACE this year, which they adjusted down in the final forecast.

“All the way up to the most active season on record, potentially, and all the way down to what we saw last year,” he said. “We’re talking ACE at basically record levels.”

Still, Klotzbach warned, an overactive season does not immediately translate to more landfalls. It just increases the odds. He warned residents in coastal states, like Florida, to prepare ahead of the start of the season.

“Obviously it only takes that one hurricane to make this year a busy season,” he said.

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