Forecast: Active hurricane season ahead

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A Category 3 hurricane made landfall near Corpus Christi on Sept. 14, 1919. The city’s downtown and North Beach were decimated. Wochit

An above-average hurricane season lies ahead – but any long-range outlook is missing the most important piece of information, experts say.

Where, exactly, those storms will land.

People tend to focus too closely on the seasonal outlooks, said John Metz, meteorologist-in-charge of Corpus Christi’s National Weather Service office.

Hurricane Hub: Your Guide to Preparing for Hurricane Season

“It doesn’t tell us if we’re gonna have a storm or not,” he said. “It’s critical that we take every hurricane season seriously and make sure that our level of preparedness is equally strong every season, regardless of what the predictions are.”

In a report released in mid-May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast with a 60 percent confidence between 13 and 19 named storms. Of those storms, the agency forecast between six to 10 hurricanes – of those, three to six major.

Keep reading: What to do when a hurricane is headed your way

That would have the potential to be significantly higher than what the agency considers a normal season of 12 named storms, to include six hurricanes with three in strengths of Category 3, 4 or 5.

More:1919 hurricane survivor developed categories for hurricanes

Already, there have been three named storms: Arthur, Bertha and Cristobal.

A little less than three years ago, Category 4 Hurricane Harvey showed the Coastal Bend – for the first time since nearly 50 years ago – the region’s vulnerability to the savages of a storm.

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Those decades between Hurricane Harvey and 1970’s Hurricane Celia shouldn’t be mistaken as the timeframe for the next storm that will coming knocking at the door of Coastal Bend shores, experts have said.

Read moreOutdated flood maps, growing Corpus Christi could lead to disaster

Kirsten Crow covers government, industry and development in South Texas.Support local news by checking out our subscription options and special offers at Caller.com/subscribe  

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