Bob Nekaro Weather Center/2018 Atlantic usercane season forecast

The 2018 Atlantic usercane season is almost here. The season will officially begin on January 1, 2018.

The Forecast
BNWC/NUC is predicting the following activity for the 2018 Atlantic usercane season:
 * 30-40 named storms (users with 40 edits or more)
 * 3-7 usercanes (users with chat moderator rights or higher)
 * 1-4 major usercanes (users with junior administrator rights or higher).

The 2017 Atlantic usercane season featured 3 named storms forming in January, including Category 4 Usercane Chap. However, activity abruptly halted afterwards, with no new systems until the formation of Tropical Userstorm Joshua on March 31. Activity remained fairly slow until September through November, when several weak systems formed bringing the 2017 usercane season to record highs in terms of named storms. However, the season has been very weak, featuring only 3 usercanes (one of which was Subtropical Usercyclone Alissa, an extremely rare Category 3 subtropical usercyclone). Only one storm, Usercane Chap, achieved Category 4 intensity. It is expected that the increase in activity in late 2017 could continue into the early part of 2018, but it is unclear if this will occur. Regardless, we expect another weak usercane season with a very high number of named storms, though we do expect it to be somewhat stronger than the 2017 season. The predicted very high number of named storms may not materialize if the CFS model's solution comes true, which is predicting very strong large-scale subsidence over the Atlantic usercane basin for much of the 2018 season.

As of now, we plan to continue to classify tropical userpressions as users with 25 edits or more, and tropical userstorms as users with 40 edits or more. Advisories may not always be issued on time, however.