This year's hurricane season in the Atlantic will likely be more active than normal, the director of the National Hurricane Center warned Wednesday, one day after a leading researcher forecast a «very active» season. The El Nino weather pattern that suppressed hurricane development last year has diminished, and wind patterns appear to be shifting in a way that would lead tropical systems toward land rather than keeping them at sea, The Associated Press quoted center director Bill Proenza as saying at the National Hurricane Conference. It appears that «we tend to go back to an above normal season» this year, in line with a theory that the Atlantic is in a decades-long active period that started in 1995, he said. Still «there are a lot of things that could happen in the atmosphere that could have a bearing on the season,» he said. El Nino is the periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can affect weather around the world.
