Ike irking forecasters, Josephine is the 10th storm of the season

Will Ike be the next to strike? Will Ike make it into the Gulf? 14-18 Tropical storms were predicted for this year's Hurricane Seas. There is still September, october and Novermber to go, and we're at 10 already, with 5 storms at present appearing simultaneously. Anyone still think this might be an average season?

I'm predicting it will break the record set in 2005. The only question remaining is this one: how major are the major storms of 2008 going to be?

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Looking ahead, forecasters were especially concerned about the next storm in line, Ike, which is forecast to become a hurricane later today. About 740 miles east-northeast of the Leeward Islands as of late morning, Ike could become a Category 2 hurricane by early next week, threatening Caribbean islands with a new onslaught of rain and winds up to 110 mph. Although it is too soon to tell where Ike might go, its current projected path raises the prospect that it could eventually squeeze into the Gulf of Mexico, as Hurricane Gustav did last week before striking the Louisiana coast Monday. The Weather Service has predicted that 14 to 18 tropical storms would form during the Atlantic hurricane season from June through November, seven to 10 of them hurricanes, with three to six of those classified as "major hurricanes." The service said there was an 85 percent probability that this would be "an above-normal hurricane season" compared with the historical average of 10 named tropical storms.