AccuWeather Inc. increased its forecast for the development of major hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean this year, while Colorado State University’s storm watchers again predicted a “well-above-average” season.AccuWeather, based in State College, Pennsylvania, boosted its forecast for storms of Category 3 or higher to four today from the three it predicted in March.Colorado State’s tropical meteorology team, lead by Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, also issued a forecast update that holds to an earlier outlook for five major hurricanes, those with winds of 111 mph (179 kph) or greater.Hurricanes, the most powerful and destructive storms on the planet, are a threat to Florida orange growers, who produce the second-largest crop behind Brazil, and Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms and refineries. The Gulf accounts for 31 percent of U.S. oil output and 43 percent of refining capacity.Both AccuWeather and Colorado State see the 2011 season as less active than last year, which tied for third on record with 19 named storms. It will still be about 175 percent of normal, Klotzbach and Gray said.“We are predicting the same levels of activity that were forecast in early April due to favorable atmospheric and oceanic conditions in the tropical Atlantic,” Gray said in a statement. “We continue to anticipate an above-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall.”Season Began TodayThe 2011 Atlantic hurricane season began today, with a potential tropical storm system just 200 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida. While the system is expected go to ashore late today with heavy rain and gusty wind, it has a 30 percent chance of cyclone development in the next 48 hours, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.A weather system becomes a tropical storm and receives a name when sustained winds reach 39 mph. It becomes a hurricane when those winds hit 74 mph.Gray and Klotzbach forecast 16 named storms, with nine of them reaching hurricane level. The probability of a major storm making landfall somewhere in the U.S. is 72 percent, 20 percentage points above average, while there is a 48 percent chance of a strike along the East Coast and a 47 percent chance of a Gulf Coast hit, they said.AccuWeather predicts 15 named storms, with eight of them becoming hurricanes. Storm development early in the season will be concentrated from the southern and southeastern Gulf of Mexico to the western Caribbean and off the southeastern U.S. coast, AccuWeather said. In the middle of the six-month season, the activity will be aimed at an area from Texas to the northern Gulf Coast and from Florida to the Carolinas.Areas at RiskAt greatest risk for landfall are the Florida coast from Pensacola to Cape Canaveral, the area of the East Coast from the Georgia-South Carolina line to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and the stretch of the Gulf from Aransas Pass, Texas, to Morgan City, Louisiana, AccuWeather said.The official U.S. forecast, issued last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is for 12 to 18 named storms, with six to 10 becoming hurricanes and three to six of them growing into major systems.The last hurricane to hit the U.S. was Ike, a Category 2 storm, in 2008, while the last major strike was in 2005, the record year that included Hurricane Katrina.