I had a bit of déja vu after hearing about the hurricane predictions from 2007. The consensus: we'll have a "very active" hurricane season. But unlike last year's predictions, this year's have some teeth by way of figures.

The atmospheric science experts at Colorado State said there's now a 74 percent probability that at least one minor hurricane will make landfall along the U.S. coast.

Furthermore, the CSU team said we're likely to see:

• 9 hurricanes
• 17 named storms
• 85 named storm days
• 40 hurricane days
• 5 intense hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5)
• 11 intense hurricane days

According to this Insurance Journal report, El Nino is once again the basis for annual hurricane predictions. The above figures have increased since December, "due largely to the rapid dissipation of El Nino which as occurred over the past couple of months."

Check out the IJ article here, and be sure to scroll down to read the comments. After last year's uneventful storm season, it would appear that some folks are pretty skeptical of said scientists. I've got some doubts of my own. I mean, we can't even get a decent weekly weather forecast in Denver. :)