Stormy Weather - Not So Much

A dud year for the Weather Channel's Jim Cantori to do his Mimbo-Confronts-Nature's-Fury shtick?

MIAMI (AFP) - Weather experts on Wednesday reduced the number of projected hurricanes in the north Atlantic this season to four, two of them major hurricanes with winds above 178 kilometers (111 miles) per hour.

After one of the calmest starts to the hurricane season in a decade, the experts from Colorado State University said the development of an El Nino effect in the Pacific had caused them to scale back their projections for the Atlantic.

The El Nino phenomenon, which involves changes in atmospheric pressure in the southern Pacific, occurs every three to six years, disrupting global weather patterns.

In the Atlantic, El Nino events are associated with decreased levels of hurricane activity, said Philip Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University.

"We continue to call for a below-average Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2009. We also anticipate a below-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall," they said.

They now project that there will be 10 named tropical storms this season, of which four will become hurricanes, and two of those major hurricanes.

Actually, I think things are going to be hotter than that. We put up a tree-house for the Llama-ettes out back this summah. Our handyman got a real kick out of designing the thing and sort of got carried away with it, the result being a two-room affair anchored to three different tree-trunks. As I stood looking at the thing the other day, I couldn't help thinking that it's been a good six years since we had a serious tropical storm come through the Dee Cee area and such construction might well be viewed as waving a red flag at Mother Nature and daring her to send in another.

I mentioned this to the gels. It didn't go over very well.