Caribbean.

Expert William Gray said there would be seven hurricanes this year, with three intense enough to cause major damage.

"It does not bode very well for the Southeast and the Caribbean,'' the Colorado State University professor said.

The danger for Bermuda is unclear -- Prof. Gray's forecasts only predict how many and how strong this year's hurricanes will be, but not where or whether they will make landfall.

Among those keenly interested in Prof. Gray's predictions are Bermuda's property catastrophe reinsurers.

This year's forecast predicts 11 named tropical storms, seven of which will grow to hurricane strength of 74 mph, during the hurricane season that runs from June 1 to November 30.

Of those, three will strengthen into intense storms with sustained whirlwinds of at least 110 mph, the forecast said. "They're the ones that are the blockbusters, with destructive potential 100 to 200 times that of a minimal 74-mph hurricane,'' Prof. Gray said.

The quarterly forecast was unchanged from the initial 1997 forecast Prof. Gray and his research team released in December, and even slightly below last year's level.

But it confirms there has been literally a sea change ushering in an era of more and stronger Atlantic hurricanes.

On average since 1950, there have been nine tropical storms a year, with five or six growing to hurricane strength and two of those surpassing 110 mph intensity.

From most of the 1970s to 1994, yearly totals were below that because the north Atlantic waters were generally cooler than normal and the south Atlantic waters warmer than normal, conditions that suppress hurricanes.

"In 1994-95 that changed,'' Prof. Gray said. "The north Atlantic became warmer and the south Atlantic became colder. We think that's due to basic Atlantic ocean circulation. We're pretty darn sure, 95 percent sure, we've entered a new era for tropical storms, particularly intense or major storms.'' Last year saw 13 named storms, nine hurricanes and six intense hurricanes.

"In 1995 and 1996 we had the two most active hurricane seasons on record, ever, going back about 120 years,'' Prof. Gray said. "If our forecast is moderately accurate this year...it will mean that from 1995 to 1997 we've had the most active consecutive three-year period ever.'' Research ranging from ice core studies in Greenland to tree ring exploration suggests the shift occurs naturally every 20 to 40 years and are "probably nothing to do with man-induced changes,'' Prof. Gray said.

But the current pattern is associated with more hurricane activity in the Atlantic and Caribbean seas and Gulf of Mexico.

Coastal populations and real estate values have soared since the last active hurricane cycle, making the forecast even more ominous.

"Florida is definitely a sitting duck,'' Prof. Gray said.

Prof. Gray's team based its predictions on various factors, including the absence of El Nino. The phenomenom produces unusually warm surface waters off the coast of Peru, which produces upper level westerly winds that shear off hurricane development.

In years like this one, when El Nino is absent, Atlantic hurricane activity increases.

The study is also based on colder-than-normal temperatures 54,000 feet above Singapore, westerly winds in the stratosphere above the equator, and lower than normal air pressure in the Caribbean -- all factors that encourage Atlantic storm development.

While the last two years have been active, an upper atmospheric trough nudged the storms away from the US coastline and out to sea in 1995.

"The probability of having such a well positioned trough this year is probably not very high,'' Prof. Gray said.

His next revised forecast is due on June 6.