Tropical cyclone seasonal forecasting is the process of predicting the number of

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

s in one of the world's seven tropical cyclone basins during a particular tropical cyclone season. In the north Atlantic Ocean, one of the most widely publicized annual predictions comes from the Tropical Meteorology Project at

Colorado State University Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...

. These reports are written by Philip J. Klotzbach and

William M. Gray William "Bill" Mason Gray (9 October 1929 – 16 April 2016) was emeritus professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University (CSU), and the head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences. He ...

Colorado State University's Tropical Meteorology Project

Since 1984, Dr

and his associates at the

have issued a seasonal forecast, that has aimed to predict the number of tropical storms and hurricanes that will develop within the Atlantic basin during the upcoming season amongst other factors. The forecasts were initially issued ahead of time for June and August. After the active 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Dr Gray decided to allow Philip J. Klotzbach to take the primary responsibility for the project's seasonal, monthly and landfall probability forecasts effective with the first forecast for the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season.

National Meteorological Services

Ahead of each season several national meteorological services issue forecasts of how many tropical cyclones will form during a season and/or how many tropical cyclones will affect a particular country. Examples include the United Kingdom's

Met Office The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelope E ...

which issues a in May/June of the number of tropical storms for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, while the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Service tries to predict how many tropical cyclones will move into its area of responsibility.

United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

In August 1998, the United States Climate Prediction Center in conjunction with the

National Hurricane Center The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is the division of the United States' NOAA/National Weather Service responsible for tracking and predicting tropical weather systems between the Prime Meridian and the 140th meridian west poleward to the 3 ...

and the

Hurricane Research Division The Hurricane Research Division (HRD) is a section of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, Florida, and is the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) focus for tropical cyclone research. T ...

issued a tropical cyclone outlook, which accurately predicted that there would be an above-normal number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic between August and October. The NOAA centres subsequently started to issue an outlook that gave a general guide to the expected overall activity within the Atlantic Ocean. Ahead of the 2003 Pacific hurricane season, the NOAA forecasters decided to start issuing an experimental tropical cyclone outlook for the Eastern Pacific, which was designed not to be updated during the mid-season. As a result of both the 2003 and 2004 outlooks being successful, the predictions became an operational product during 2005. NOAA is also one of the contributors to New Zealand's

National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA ( mi, Taihoro Nukurangi), is a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. Established in 1992, NIWA conducts research across a broad range of disciplines in the environmental scienc ...

Tropical Cyclone Outlook, through its

National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...

forecast offices in the region and the Climate Prediction Center.

Australia and the Pacific Islands

New Zealand's

(NIWA) and collaborating agencies including the

Meteorological Service of New Zealand Meteorological Service of New Zealand Limited (MetService - Te Ratonga Tirorangi) is the national meteorological service of New Zealand. MetService was established as a state-owned enterprise in 1992. It employs about 300 staff, and its headqua ...

and Pacific Island National Meteorological Services issue the "Island Climate Update Tropical Cyclone Outlook" for the Pacific. This forecast attempts to predict how many tropical cyclones and severe tropical cyclones will develop within the Southern Pacific between 135°E and 120°W as well as how many will affect a particular island nation. The

Fiji Meteorological Service The Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) is a Department of the government of Fiji responsible for providing weather forecasts and is based on the grounds of Nadi Airport in Nadi. The current director of Fiji Meteorological Service is Misaeli Funaki. ...

while collaborating with NIWA and partners also publishes its own seasonal forecast but for the South Pacific basin between 160°E and 120°W. Since the start of the 2009–10 season, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Center has publicly released a forecast for the Australian region which focused on the broadscale aspects of the cyclone season, and forecasted how likely it was that a subregion was to see activity above the average as well as how many tropical cyclones may occur within the basin and each of its subregions. However ahead of the 2011–12 season the NCC stopped forecasting publicly how many tropical cyclones may occur in a certain region and just forecasted how likely it was that a subregion was to see activity above the average.

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