Hurricane Season Could Be Worse Than Expected

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The peak of hurricane season has approached and it's expected to be more active than originally believed.

Forecasters just increased the number of storms that will likely develop over the next 14 months and the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season is well underway, CBS2's Elise Finch reported.

There have already been six named storms and meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are predicting quite a few more.

At the beginning of the season on June 1, forecasters predicted 10 to 16 named storms. They recently raised that to 12 to 17.

They were expecting four to eight of those storms to become hurricanes, that number is now five to eight. Instead of one to four of those becoming major hurricanes, they now believe two to four of them will develop into major hurricanes.

In an updated hurricane season outlook, scientists explain the main factors expected to lead to the development of more storms.

"In recent years we've seen a lot of dry air off the African Continent and this year we're seeing a lot of moisture, a lot of tropical waves moving off the continent and some of these tropical waves if they move into conditions that are favorable may develop into tropical systems," said Peter Wichrowski of the National Weather Service.

The number of tropical storms is expected to rise this hurricane season, but severe weather events have been on the rise for decades.

"Since 1980, we've seen about four times as much severe weather and extreme events," said Ross Dickman of the National Weather Service. "We're seeing temperatures rise, we're seeing global sea level rises occurring and that does have an impact on the jet stream that steers weather patterns across the United States and sometimes it gets misconfigured and when that happens it produces an extreme event."

Dickman said expect to see more severe weather events in the future, which include major hurricanes. He also said that just because the storms develop doesn't mean they'll impact the Tri-State area.