Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne

Katrina

Call them the voices of experience!

Floridians were battered by four hurricanes last year. All struck within six weeks. Hurricane Ivan, which formed in early September, was the monster hurricane of 2004. At one point, Ivan's winds reached 165 miles an hour, making it one of the most intense hurricanes in history! The $45 billion in damages done by these storms makes the 2004 season the most expensive on record!

Meteorologists think a decade-long trend of active Atlantic hurricane seasons will continue this summer. That's bad news for U.S. coastal residents who took a $45 billion (U.S.) pounding from the storms last year.

During the 2005 Hurricane season, which officially began June 1 and runs to November 30, expect to become familiar with a new host of terrifying names:

Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, Gert. Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rita, Stan, Tammy, Vince, Wilma.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida, predicts seven to nine hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin, with three to five of them becoming major hurricanes with winds exceeding 111 miles an hour (178 kilometers an hour).. Forecaster William Gray of Colorado State University expects a busy summer in the Atlantic Basin. Gray, a pioneer in long-range hurricane forecasting, thinks eight hurricanes will form during the season. He thinks there's a 77 percent probability that a major hurricane will make landfall somewhere on the U.S. coast this summer. He puts the chances of the Florida peninsula taking a hit at 59 percent. 28 percentage points above the normal risk..