In a typical average hurricane season, we see 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes. This is based on data collected from 1981-2010. NOAA has now updated those numbers to reflect more recent data beginning with this hurricane season. They now have bumped up the average number of named storms to 14, increased the number of hurricanes to 7 from 6 and have left the number of major hurricanes at 3, unchanged from the previous average.
This is taking into account more recent data collected from 1991 - 2020. The increase in the numbers is likely due to warmer than average sea surface temperatures and the atmosphere overall, all a result of climate change. The increase may also be attributed to improvements in remote sensing such as satellites that have improved forecasting and analysis.
