(WTNH) — Earlier today, NOAA released their 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season outlook. It looks like we could have another potentially active season with 13 to 20 named storms.

Of those 13-20 named storms, six to ten could become hurricanes, with three to five of them becoming major hurricanes with winds greater than 111 mph.

This forecast seems to be on point with Colorado State University’s outlook which was released in early April. CSU is predicting seventeen named storms. Of those seventeen storms, eight could become hurricanes and four could become major hurricanes.

Now one thing to note — while NOAA expects another above-average season, they do not anticipate the historic level of storm activity that we saw in 2020. As a reminder, we had 30 named storms last year.

So the reason behind the active season is warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean sea coupled with a lack of upper-level winds.

La Nina ended a couple of weeks ago and ENSO conditions are neutral. La Nina and neutral conditions support the development of tropical cyclones. When El Nino is present, that means strong upper-level winds that can tear storms apart. So we would need an El Nino summer to support a less active season.

Here’s a look at the list of storm names coming up this year: The first storm will be named Ana. As you can see the fifth named storm will be Elsa. Sadly, we will probably not see Ana and Elsa at the same time. We’ll have to let it go.