The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center, led by Chief Hurricane and Long-Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi, will update its 2007 Hurricane Season Forecast on August 21 and will reiterate the pre-season forecast for five or six landfalling storms and an extremely disruptive and potentially destructive latter part of the hurricane season.

Even as other forecasting services reduce their estimates for the 2007 hurricane season, Bastardi warns that the season is far from over. “The pattern is pulsing just at the worst time of the season, when the Atlantic season, on average, becomes alive,” said Bastardi.

One hurricane in the wrong place can set the tone for the season even if the number of storms is below average. Hurricane Andrew, the first storm of 1992 serves as an example why the number of storms in a season does not tell the whole story. When Andrew landed in mid-August it was the first storm of a “slow” season, yet it turned out to be the second most destructive hurricane in U.S. history.

Hurricane Dean and Tropical Depression Erin are just the beginning of what Bastardi describes as “a tropical track race” that he expects to play out through September and into October.