The latest pre-season forecast for the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, which opens tomorrow, was released today. And it shows no change from previous versions. The forecast team led by Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, of  Colorado State University, continues to predict a very active season, with 17 named storms, including 9 hurricanes, of which five are expected to be "major" - meaning Category 3 or higher.

In addition, the Colorado State group is setting an 82 percent chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall in the United States (the long-term average is 52 percent), and a 69 percent chance it will land on the U.S. East Coast, from Florida northward - more than twice the average. You can read the whole report here.

The good news is that sea surface temperatures across the hurricane-birthing area of the Atlantic, while warmer than average, are cooler than they were at the start of last year's hurricane season. These images from May 2005 and May 2006 tell the tale.

In the meantime, the 2006 Hurricane Season for the Eastern Pacific is already underway, with the first named storm - Aletta - weakening south of Mexico's Pacific coast. Here's the latest (and last) forecast discussion. Here's the satellite view. What's left of Aletta is the mass of clouds at lower right.