MIAMI (Reuters) – The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be "above-average" in activity and produce 11 to 16 tropical storms, including six to eight hurricanes, a leading team of US-based researchers said yesterday.

The Colorado State University team, formed by forecasting pioneer William Gray, said three to five of next year's storms would become "major" hurricanes of Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale. "We foresee a somewhat above-average Atlantic basin hurricane season," Gray said in a statement.

The Colorado State University experts, whose forecasts are followed closely in energy and commodity markets, had originally expected the 2009 season to produce 14 tropical storms, of which seven would become hurricanes.

But the 2009 season ended on November 30 had only nine storms, including three hurricanes, and was the quietest since 1997. Atlantic hurricane activity this year was below average, due in part to El Nino, the eastern Pacific warm-water phenomenon that tends to suppress Atlantic hurricanes. "We anticipate the current El Nino event to dissipate by the 2010 hurricane season and warm sea-surface temperatures are likely to continue being present in the tropical and North Atlantic during 2010 – conditions that contribute to an above-average season," Gray said. An average Atlantic season has about ten tropical storms, of which six become hurricanes.

No hurricanes hit the United States in 2009 for the first time in three years. Two systems, Claudette and Ida, brought tropical storm-force winds to US shores. The Colorado State forecast team offered its 2010 predictions in a range rather than the specific numbers it had used in the past, following the lead of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US climate agency. "Major" hurricanes pack powerful sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour. Gray's team said there was a 64 percent chance that at least one such potentially deadly storm would make landfall on the US coastline in 2010 compared to a long-term average probability of 52 percent.

For the Gulf Coast, from the Florida Panhandle west to Brownsville, Texas, including the Gulf of Mexico oil patch, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall was seen at 40 percent versus a long-term average of 30 percent.

Gray's team cautioned that extended-range forecasts for hurricane activity are imprecise and can often miss the mark.

"Everyone should realise that it is impossible to precisely predict next season's hurricane activity at such an extended range," the team said. "One must remember that our forecasts are based on the premise that those global oceanic and atmospheric conditions which preceded comparatively active or inactive hurricane seasons in the past provide meaningful information about similar trends in future seasons. This is not always true for individual seasons."