The Atlantic hurricane season will be busier than normal, but it’s unlikely to be as crazy as 2020’s record-shattering year, meteorologists on both sides of the border say. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts that the hurricane season, which runs from June through November, will see 13 to 20 named storms of which six to 10 will become hurricanes and three to five will be major hurricanes.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Hurricane Centre is also predicting another active hurricane season this year, citing the persistence of warmer-than-average ocean temperatures.

“Everything is pointing in that direction,” says CHC meteorologist Bob Robichaud. “We’re pretty confident to say it won’t be as active as 2020, but it will be more active than the 30-year average.”

Since 1990, a typical southern season sees 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes — a climate normal that has increased in recent decades. There’s a 60% chance that this hurricane season will be busier than normal and only a 10% chance it will be below normal, the NOAA says.

Lead agency forecaster Matthew Rosencrans says the season looks to be busy because of warmer water, which fuels storms; reduced cross winds that decapitate storms; and more seeds of stormy weather coming off the coast of Africa. There is also no El Nino weather event, the natural temporary warming of the central Pacific that squelches Atlantic hurricane activity, he adds.

Atlantic waters are nearly 0.38 degrees Celsius warmer than normal, which is not as hot as 2020 when they were 0.56 degrees Celsius above normal, sasy Rosencrans.

Last year, there were 30 named storms — so many that meteorologists ran out of names and dipped into the Greek alphabet to identify them. There were 14 hurricanes last year, seven of them major.

Earlier this year, meteorologists decided to ditch the Greek alphabet after the normal list of names runs out, instead creating a special overflow list. Seven of last year’s storms caused more than $1 billion in damage.

Several universities and private weather companies also make hurricane season forecasts, with all of them echoing NOAA’s predictions. They predict 16 to 20 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to five major hurricanes.

In Canada, an average of four named storms enter the Canadian Hurricane Centre’s response zone every year. “But it takes only one storm to make it a bad year,” Robichaud observes.

Last year, eight named storms entered the Canadian zone, but only four of them warranted bulletins from the centre, based in Dartmouth, NS.

Isaias brought heavy rainfall and power outages to southeastern Quebec in August. And on Sept. 23 post-tropical storm Teddy roared ashore in eastern Nova Scotia and then trudged across southern Cape Breton. Its winds of 100 km/h caused widespread power outages, but not much damage.

The 2019 season was also active, producing 18 named storms and three major hurricanes, including Dorian. That storm left a swath of devastation and death across the Bahamas – killing at least 70 people – before roaring over the Maritimes on Sept. 7-8.

Its hurricane-force winds knocked out electricity in all three provinces, leaving more than 500,000 homes and businesses in the dark for up to a week while causing an estimated $140 million in damage – two-thirds of which was reported in Nova Scotia.