A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I got a hurricane named Isaac...

Get ready! Batten down the hatches, or whatever you do with your battens.

The Atlantic Hurricane (known in Maryland as "HAIRikin Season) Season is June 1 til November 30, after which it is not allowable to wear white clothing. During Hurricane Season, dress as you would for boarding up windows and bringing in lawn furniture, the grill, and Uncle Ed from where they sit outside and putting them in the garage or whatever saloon Ed likes.

And the annual clenchy predictions are out for this season. We get guesses  informed predictions from two main sources: Colorado State University, and AccuWeather.  CSU is calling for slightly above-average hurricane activity with a prediction of 14 named storms (see name chart below.) They go on say that 7 of the 14 will be graduated to full hurricane status, with 3 of THEM being full-blown BFD (Big Fine Donnybrook) major hurricanes.

Over at AccuWeather, their weather guesses say it will be a near normal to slightly above-normal year, and they say to count on between 12 to 15 tropical storms, with 6 to 8  forecast to become hurricanes and 3 to 5 are seen as real bough-breakers.

Of course, it seems longer than this, but it was only last September when the Hurricane Twins, Irma and Maria, caused such unimaginable damage in the South and Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Michael Bell, of Colorado University's Tropical Meteorology Project, is one of those believers in the "whose ox is being gored" theory of disaster evaluation, because, as he puts it, "It takes only one storm near you to make this an active season."  And how many times have we been enjoying clear, sunny summer weather while the coast of N. Carolina or Flo. Rida are being shredded by a named storm?  And vice versa.

The meteorologists sit down and analyze decades' worth of data, including the temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean waters, sea level pressures, vertical wind shear (that's the measurement of wind speed and direction compared to heights above sea level and the always-important El Niño (the result of waters warming in the Pacific).

There is also a scientific notion that as far as hurricanes are concerned, lightning does not strike twice in the same location, but two wrongs do not make a right, either.

Here are the names of the candidates for Hurricane Status: (clip 'n' save!)