Atlantic hurricane season - a record-breaking dud?

(Reuters) - The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm hangs over the tropics. As the season heads into the historic peak for activity, it may even enter the record books as marking the quietest start to any Atlantic hurricane season in decades.

 

"It certainly looks like pretty much of a forecast bust," said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at the Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com).

"Virtually all the (forecast) groups were calling for above-normal hurricanes and intensive hurricanes and we haven't even had a hurricane at all, with the season half over," he said.

With records going back to 1851, Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the U.S. National Hurricane Center, said there had been only 17 years when the first Atlantic hurricane formed after September 4.

READ MORE:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/07/us-weather-hurricanes-idUSBRE9860AY20130907