So, here we are, in the statistical "peak" of the Atlantic hurricane season and what do we have to show for it? Just five named storms, including one hurricane. And, for now, the tropics seem surprisingly quiet.

It's not that we're wishing for more storms, mind you. It's just that forecasters have been insisting since April that we would see an unusually "active" season. All the conditions are there - warm sea surface temperatures, favorable winds aloft and the right La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean - to encourage storm formation in the Atlantic. Here is a map of current sea surface temperatures. Red and orange are warm, blue is cool.

And, somehow, it just seems like it's been unusually quiet.

Not at all, says Gerry Bell, of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center, whom I nabbed in the middle of his seaside vacation. "We're not changing the forecast," he said. "The conditions we predicted are still in place, and we're expecting an active season."

Active? With only five named storms? Granted, Hurricane Dean was one of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes ever at landfall when it went ashore last week on the Yucatan coast.

"There have been a lot of active years when we don't see a lot of activity until mid-August," Bell said. "Everything's in place for an active season."

The National Weather Service is still forecasting a total of 11 named storms this year. If they're right, we should have six more (including five that reach hurricane strength) to look forward to (or worry about) before the season ends officially on Dec. 1.

Both the weather service and Colorado State University experts have shaved back their earlier forecasts for the season by a storm or two. But both are still expecting the season to be more active than the long-term average. 

Colorado State's forecasters, Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, are expected to issue a new update to their forecast next week. We'll pass it along when it's published.