Hurricane Forecast Revised Downward Energy Market Underwhelmed

Following the golden rule of long-range forecasting ("Forecast early and often"), the landlocked hurricane forecasters at Colorado State today revised their Atlantic tropical season outlook downward from their April predictions. The current forecast calls for slightly below-average activity and slightly below average probability of major hurricane landfall:

• Named storms: 11
  
• Hurricanes: 5
  
• Major hurricanes: 2

The probability of a major hurricane landfall is projected to be:

• Entire U.S. coast: 48%
  
• East Coast, including peninsular Florida: 28%
  
• Gulf Coast: 28%

After having run up 20% in the past week (as much as 10% yesterday alone), natural gas prices following the forecast announcement have been down less than 2%.

Image: 7-day chart of U.S. Natural Gas Fund price, from Fidelity Investments