The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued its first official forecast for the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Academic forecasters - William Gray and his team at Colorado State University - have already predicted an active season.

The feds, too, are calling for an active season, with 13 to 17 named storms, of which 7 to 10 will reach hurricane force. Of those, 3 to 5 will reach Cat. 3 strength. Last year, an especially quiet season, there were 9 named storms, 5 hurricanes, of which 2 were Cat. 3 or higher. Here's the full report.

Of course, the forecasts issued in May of 2005 and 2006 were far off the mark. The 2005 forecast fell short of the actual pace of storms by about half. NOAA predicted 12 to 15 named storms, and the 2005 season coughed up 27. The following year NOAA predicted 13 to 16 tropical storms, and the 2006 season wheezed to produce just 9. So, while it's always wise to be prepared - even a skimpy season can yield the storm that floods your house - we need to take these forecasts with a grain of salt. Only time will tell how bad it really gets.

Officially, the hurricane season doesn't begin until June 1. But we have already seen one sub-tropical storm come and go off the Southeast coast. It was strong enough, briefly, to cop the name Andrea from the 2007 list. But that's no indicator for which way this season will go.

And today's forecast discussion out of Sterling hints that forecast models are indicating the first tropical cyclone of the season could develop next week in the Caribbean. There's nothing yet from the National Hurricane Center on that, although forecasters are watching some convection in the western Caribbean, and predicting it will move west across the countries of southern Central America and into the eastern Pacific.  Here's the radar loop that shows that stormy area near Panama. Here's the tropical forecast discussion.

In the meantime, our weather continues to look quite perfect, right through the long holiday weekend. Here's the forecast.