FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) - Weather researcher William Gray says the 2007 hurricane season was less active than his team predicted, with six hurricanes developing in the Atlantic instead of the nine he initially forecast.

Phil Klotzbach, a member of Gray's team at Colorado State University, said Tuesday that cooler water and the presence of wind shears in the central tropical Atlantic made this an average season. The team had expected an above-average season.

It's the second straight year the team predicted more hurricanes than actually occurred.

Klotzbach says that in seven of the past nine years, the team correctly predicted whether the season would be above or below average.


(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)