Tis the season!

No, not the season to be jolly (like the song says), but the season to keep one eye on the Atlantic. Yep, it's the start of the 2010 hurricane season. Yippee! (NOT!!!) It's the reality I live in, and I happily accept that for getting to live where I live.

Forecasters say that this year is trending to be an active year in the Atlantic, calling for 14 to 23 named storms (mind you, there are only 21 storm names because not all letters of the alphabet are used.. I'd rather not run out of letters again this year), with three to seven being major storms. They say this season could possibly ranking among the top-10 most active. Grrrreeeeaaat. Not that it means any of them are going to make it in to the Gulf of Mexico, but still... grrrreeeeaaat.

So why do they think it's going to be an active season? For exactly the opposite reasons that 2009 was so quiet.

• El Nino is supposed to change to La Nina, which apparently ramps up the hurricane activity.
• The waters off the coast of Africa (where a majority of the storms form) is already really warm. Not a good sign.
• The sea level pressure is apparently favorable to storms.

I'm not freaking out (yet). That does me no good at this point in time. But I will tell you that I will always have one eye on NOAA and The Weather Channel, and I will say a prayer every night that Jim Cantore is not in my neighborhood again. Yes, I said again because he was here for Ike, and you know that if he is in your town during a major weather event, you're basically screwed.

In case you're wondering, here are the names for this year's Atlantic hurricanes:
Alex
Bonnie
Colin
Danielle
Earl
Fiona
Gaston
Hermine
Igor
Julia
Karl
Lisa
Matthew
Nicole
Otto
Paula
Richard
Shary
Tomas
Virginie
Walter

So, welcome to the 2010 hurricane season. Here's to an uneventful one.