The long-range forecasts for next year’s Atlantic hurricane season are out and come with a slew of caveats re their forecast accuracy. Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project team calls for an above-average Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2010 with above-average probability of U.S. and Caribbean major hurricane landfall, but cautions: “Although these early December forecasts have not shown recent-year real-time forecast skill, we believe our new early December forecast scheme will begin to demonstrate forecast skill in the coming years.”  Meanwhile, London-based consortium Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) predicts an active Atlantic hurricane season in 2010, but warns: “Users should note that the precision of TSR’s extended range outlooks for Atlantic hurricane activity between 1980 and 2009 is low.” All this leads to the obvious question of how useful these forecasts can be this far out. Over at bnet.com’s finance blog Ed Leefeldt makes the case that insurers should […]

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