The recovery from Hurricane Harvey continues across southeast Texas nearly seven months later, but forecasters are already looking ahead to the 2018 hurricane season. The new projection from Global Weather Oscillations (GWO) calls for a similar pattern to the very active 2017 season in the Atlantic. "What we're expecting is pretty much the same amount of hurricane landfalls as last year," says GWO's David Dilley. "Landfalls will be in a little bit different locations, for most areas anyway, but it is going to be a very active hurricane landfall season."
GWO's prediction carries some weight, because they were among the most accurate last year. For 2017, they correctly predicted the most active and costly Atlantic hurricane season since 2005, and even accurately predicted one of the major storms would make landfall above Corpus Christi. For 2018, GWO predicts 16 named storms in the Atlantic, with eight hurricanes and four major hurricanes. They also forecast two "major impact storms" to make landfall in the U.S.
The heightened tropical activity in the Atlantic that began last year is part of a larger trend, according to Dilley. "Both Florida and Texas just emerged from an 8-to-12 year hurricane drought, and now you're going into an active cycle of landfalls," he says. "In fact, all of the United States coastal areas are now in a 70-year peak period for hurricane landfalls."