Major hurricane predicted in August

Tropical Storm Barry whipped up some surf but faded. Forecasters say more storms are to come.

FORT COLLINS, Colorado (CNN) -- As the Atlantic hurricane season's second named storm faded into memory on its way over Mississippi and Arkansas, hurricane forecaster William Gray predicted two more named storms in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico during the month of August.

One of those, said Gray and his team of researchers, will be a major hurricane, registering Category 3 or higher on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale.

The forecast for an individual month is a new twist for the Colorado State University professor and his forecast team, who in the past have given predictions only for the entire hurricane season, which stretches from June 1 to November 30.

Despite the relatively slow start to this hurricane season -- only two named storms, neither of which reached hurricane level -- Gray and his team are not changing their full-season prediction.

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"We've called for 12 storms and have seen two thus far, but in our experience that doesn't suggest anything about the overall season," Gray said. "No correlation has ever been established between early season storms and what might occur later in the season.

The first of those named storms, Tropical Storm Allison, dumped heavy rains on Texas in June, and the second, Tropical Storm Barry, drenched the Florida coast before angling back to the northwest as it slipped into a tropical depression.

More than 30 people lost their lives because of Allison and its accompanying flooding.

Barry threatened to become the season's first Atlantic hurricane, making landfall early Monday morning east of the Florida resort town of Destin, the National with 70 mph winds and a storm surge of 4 to 5 feet. A Category 1 hurricane has winds of at least 74 miles per hour.

Gray predicted that seven of the 12 storms during the season would reach hurricane strength, and three of those would be intense hurricanes.

The historic averages are 9.3 named storms, 5.8 hurricanes and 2.2 intense hurricanes, though the averages for the past six seasons have been higher.

"These numbers aren't extreme, but they continue the trend in which hurricane activity appears to be on a multi-decadal upswing," Gray said.

Gray predicts there is a 69 percent chance one of this season's intense hurricanes will make landfall in the United States. He estimates a 50 percent chance a major hurricane will hit the East Coast (including the Florida Gulf coast up to the Panhandle), with a 39 percent chance a storm will make landfall on the Gulf coast from the Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, Texas.