El Niño is saving us from a catastrophic hurricane season

El Niño may be wreaking havoc in Texas and Oklahoma with deadly floods, but the climate cycle, which brings warmer-than-average temperatures to the Pacific Ocean, will likely suppress the hurricanes that typically hit the coastal areas in the southern and eastern parts of the country. El Niño is already affecting wind and pressure patterns and is expected to last through the season that runs June 1 through November 30.

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center calls it a "below-normal" hurricane season, which means there is only a 70 percent likelihood that six to 11 named storms will develop.

But that "doesn’t mean we're off the hook," a NOAA administrator cautions. As many as six of those storms could become hurricanes and even tropical storms can cause serious destruction. Experts also point out that the "below-normal" 1992 season had only seven storms, but the first was Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane that devastated South Florida.

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