2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season

Category 4, Hurricane Earl as it moved away from the Leeward Islands on August 30, 2010.

June 1st! Today kicks off the first day of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season. As it is every year, hurricane season brings the hopes of long period ground swell with warm water and warm air temps for surfers up and down the East Coast. Predictions for this year have also been rolling in and not only are they calling for another above average season but some forecasters are comparing 2011 to the super-active and very deadly 2005 hurricane season. We’ll take a look at these predictions along with let you in on what the 2011 storms will be named below.

The official forecast, as of June 1st, is that the Atlantic Basin will see 12-18 named storms including 6-10 hurricanes with 3-6 of those being major hurricanes. Warmer sea surface temperatures and the weakening La Niña will both contribute to 2011 possibly being an above average season.

If you want to read more on the predictions and forecasts for the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season, be sure to check out the Pre Season Forecast issued by the Tropical Storm Risk and the Extended Range Forecast issued by the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University.

Even though surfers on the East Coast, like myself, get excited about hurricane season every year, it doesn’t mean we’re looking forward to the destruction and devastation that these storms can bring to our coastline. Let’s get it straight, surfable waves from hurricanes is what we get stoked on not the destruction a storm can create.

Now for the fun part: 2011 Storm Names.

If these names look familiar it’s because these are the names that were used in 2005. You may notice a few missing including Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan, and Wilma, which were retired and replaced with Don, Katia, Rina, Sean, and Whitney, respectively.

Katia kind of scares me because it’s eerily similar to Katrina. At the start of every season I like to pick a couple names that I think will send New York some waves. This year I’m going with Gert, Irene, and Jose. Hopefully one of these storms will send some epic waves our way for the Quiksilver Pro New York. Let us know in the comments which storms you think will send us waves.

Could we possibly see Arlene form in the next week? Most likely no, but there is a small area of low pressure sitting about 200 miles off the coast of Florida that has a 30% chance of forming into Tropical Depression 1. We’ll see how that plays out over the next couple days.

If you want to keep up on the activity in the Atlantic Basin this year, below some links to sites that I use every year.

National Hurricane Center
Weather Underground Tropical Weather & Hurricanes
Weather.com Tropical Atlantic Satellite Map
Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog
Weather.com Hurricane Central
Surfline’s Hurricanetrak

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