One team of hurricane forecasters is predicting the quietest storm season since the 1950s and 1960s because of El Niño, which can inhibit tropical cyclone formation.
Forecasters at the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University are predicting just seven named storms, the fewest in two decades, and three hurricanes, fewest since 2009. A typical season has 12 named storms and six or seven hurricanes, according to the project.
It would be a second consecutive quiet season, with eight named storms last year. However, six of those storms reached hurricane status, with maximum sustained winds of at least 74 mph.
The last time seven named storms were tallied across an entire season was 1994; there haven't been fewer named storms than that since 1986, when there were six.
The forecasters peg the odds of a major hurricane, of Category 3, 4 or 5 with winds of at least 111 mph, making landfall along United States coastline at 28 percent, compared with an average of 52 percent over the past century.
A major hurricane has not made landfall in the United States since Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Sandy was a Category 1 hurricane as it approached the eastern seaboard in 2012 but was not technically a tropical cyclone anymore when it made landfall in New Jersey.
Hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.
If any storms reach hurricane status, this is what they would be named.