I just read this and I'm really hoping that it will be proved wrong.
Four named storms in early July set record
Forecasters predict a bad hurricane season
Updated: 5:33 p.m. ET July 9, 2005
Arlene, Bret, Cindy and now Dennis. Storm hunters dont expect to be hunched over their radar screens and dispatching chase aircraft until Labor Day. But 2005 is no normal year.
Martin Nelson, the lead forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, says this is the first time the Atlantic hurricane season had four named storms this early since record-keeping began in 1851. The season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
The first three storms never grew beyond tropical storms that dumped rain and cut utilities from Louisiana to the Carolinas. Dennis got its name on July 5 and two days later it had morphed into a Category 4 monster with winds reaching 150 mph. It also is the earliest occurrence of a Category 4 hurricane in the Caribbean, and possibly the U.S., meteorologists say.