Hurricane season check-up, two months in

As we close out the second month of the five that comprise hurricane season, here's a look at how this year stacks up against the previous five.

We've seen four named storms so far, which equals three of those recent years. We've had quite active seasons overall recently, with most eventual season totals well above the long-term average of 12 named storms.

The prediction from Colorado State University for this season is 18 named storms, which fits in with the ranges predicted by most other groups (13-20 from NOAA, 18 from Florida State University, 13-17 from NC State, etc).

We've seen one season (2010) in the last five where a typically slow start (two systems by the end of July is the long-term average) still yielded a very active entire season with 19 tropical cyclones, and just one rather quiet season in 2009 where we had seen no named storms through July, and then ended up with only nine for the season.

A quick scan of several models for the next week or so doesn't turn up any obvious candidates for our next system of concern, but of course the activity level typically starts ramping up a good bit in the Atlantic through the latter half of August and into September.