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Hurricane Experts Predict Busy Season

FORT COLLINS, Colorado - As hurricane season approaches, weather experts say it will be an above-average storm season.

Forecasters at Colorado State University released their predictions Wednesday and have slightly modified their earlier forecast that predicted 17 named storms.

Now, researchers say 16 named storms will churn the Atlantic Ocean this hurricane season and nine of them are expected to turn into hurricanes and of those 5 will be major hurricanes.

Their predictions were based on the combination of warm surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic combined with neutral surface temperatures in the Pacific.

No hurricanes have made landfall in the United States in nine of the last 11 years.

That trend is not expected to continue, forecasters warn.

(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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