The 2014 Atlantic hurricane season will be an event in the annual cycle of tropical cyclone formation. The season will officially start on June 1 and end on
November 30; these dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin. However, the formation of tropical cyclones is possible at any time.
Seasonal forecasts
Forecasts of hurricane activity are issued before each hurricane season by noted
hurricane experts Philip J. Klotzbach, William M. Gray, and their associates at
Colorado State University (CSU) ; and separately by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasters.
Klotzbach's team defined the average number of storms per season (1981 to 2010) as 12.1 tropical storms, 6.4 hurricanes, 2.7 major hurricanes (storms reaching at least Category 3 strength in the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale) and an Accumulated Cyclone Ene index of 96.1.
NOAA defines a season as above-normal, near-normal or
below-normal by a combination of the number of named storms, the number
reaching hurricane strength, the number reaching major hurricane strength, and the ACE index.
Pre-season forecasts
On December 13, 2013, Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) , a public consortium consisting of experts on insurance, risk management, and seasonal climate forecasting at University College London, issued their first outlook on seasonal hurricane activity during the 2014 season. In their report, the organization called for a near-normal year, with 14 (±4) tropical storms, 6 (±3) hurricanes, 3 (±2) intense hurricanes, and a cumulative ACE index of 106 (±58) units. The basis for such included slightly stronger than normal trade winds and slightly warmer than normal sea surface temperatures across the Caribbean Sea and tropical North Atlantic.
A few months later, on March 24, 2014, Weather Services International (WSI) —a subsidiary company of The Weather Channel—released their first outlook, calling for 11 named storms, 5 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. Two factors, including cooler-than-average waters in the eastern Atlantic and the likelihood of an El Niño, were expected to negate high seasonal activity.
Storm names
The following names will be used for named storms that form in the North Atlantic in 2014. Retired names, if any, will be announced by the World Meteorological Organization in the spring of 2015. The names not retired from this list will be used again in the 2020 season. This is the same list used in the 2008 season with the exception of Gonzalo, Isaias, and Paulette, which replaced Gustav, Ike, and Paloma, respectively. The first name to be used this season is Arthur.
Arthur (unused)
Bertha (unused)
Cristobal (unused)
Dolly (unused)
Edouard (unused)
Hanna (unused)
Isaias (unused)
Josephine (unused)
Kyle (unused)
Laura (unused)
Omar (unused)
Paulette (unused)
Rene (unused)
Sally (unused)
Teddy (unused)
Fay (unused)
Gonzalo (unused)
Marco (unused)
Nana (unused)
Vicky (unused)
Wilfred (unused)
Season effects
This is a table of all of the storms that have formed in the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season. It includes their duration, names, landfall(s)–denoted by bold location names – damages, and death totals. Deaths in parentheses are additional and indirect (an example of an indirect death would be a traffic accident), but were still related to that storm. Damage and deaths include totals while the storm was extratropical, a wave, or a low, and all of the damage figures are in 2014 USD.
"Background Information: The North Atlantic Hurricane Season"
(http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/background_information.shtml).
