Affirming what several other agencies and authorities have predicted, ReAdvisory released a study last month that predicts increased hurricane activity for the 2007 summer. But in a departure from other agencies and organizations, the company avoided making exact activity calculations, saying that those kinds of predictions should be ignored.

The report, titled "The 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Pre-Season Topics," identified several key reasons why 2007 will be an active season, including warmer-than-average Atlantic sea-surface temperatures and decreasing wind shear over the Atlantic basin that results from the formation of La Ni?a. The report also predicts that more hurricanes will form in the Caribbean and Bahamas, which increases the likelihood of a storm making landfall. That theory already seems proven, given the preseason appearance of Subtropical Storm Andrea and the arrival of Tropical Storm Barry on the very day hurricane season began, June 1.

In a release, ReAdvisory's Senior Vice President Dr. Steve Smith said, "Keeping last year's relatively benign season in mind, we think that an active season — along the lines of the 1995 and 2004 seasons where we experienced between five and six Category 3 storms or above — is a distinct possibility."