After a record-setting hurricane season last year, there are early signs that this year's season will be active.

Thirty named storms formed in the Atlantic basin in 2020. Fortunately, we should not see that many this year.

However, hurricane forecasters are predicting an above-average season in 2021. Researchers at N.C. State University just released their forecast this week.

Lian Xie, professor of marine, earth and atmospheric science, leads the forecast group at N.C. State. Xie uses over 100 years of data on Atlantic hurricanes, weather patterns and sea-surface temperatures to make his predictions each year.

Another group of hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University also released their 2021 outlook earlier this month. They are also predicting an above-average season.

NOAA will issue their hurricane season forecast in late May.

Over the last several decades, hurricane seasons in the Atlantic have become more active. NOAA recently updated the 30-year average for 1991-2020. There has been a slight uptick in the number of storms compared to the 1991-2010 average.

When it comes to preparing for this year's hurricane season, we should not focus too much on these seasonal forecasts.

It is interesting to think about how active a season could be, but these forecasts do not tell us about the number of landfalling storms.  

No matter how many storms form this year, it will only take one landfalling major hurricane to make 2021 a bad year for parts of the U.S. coastline. 

As my colleague meteorologist Chris Gilson with Spectrum News in Orlando points out, one of the least active hurricane seasons over the last several decades still produced a catastrophic hurricane.

The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1. There has been some discussion that the season should start May 15 as there have been early starts to the season in recent years.

The season officially ends on November 30.