The predictions for this year’s hurricane season is out. NOAA is predicting 12 to 18 tropical or named storms (10 is average) with 6 to 10 of them becoming hurricanes (8 is average). Out of the hurricanes, 3 or 6 of those are expected to become major hurricanes with 2 being the seasonal average. Bottom line, an active year is being predicted.

Here are this year’s names for the 2011 hurricane season:

Arlene
Bret
Cindy
Don
Emily
Franklin
Gert
Harvey
Irene
Jose
Katia
Lee
Maria
Nate
Ophelia
Philippe
Rina
Sean
Tammy
Vince
Whitney

If for some reason we run out of names, the Greek alphabet will be used for more names.  That is, the names will be Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.