For hurricane forecaster William Gray, 1997 has been a tempest in a teapot.

For the past 14 Atlantic hurricane seasons, the Colorado State University professor has forecast with pretty good accuracy the number of hurricanes and tropical storms. This year, Gray has been way off.He said his predictions were "an absolute bust because the El Nino just came in stronger than we thought."

Gray had forecast a slightly busier-than-average season with 11 tropical storms, seven of them forming into hurricanes. He predicted three major hurricanes, or those with winds of at least 111 mph.

But as of early November, the season has produced only seven tropical storms and three hurricanes, only one of them major.

The season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30, but November storms are rare. The height of the season is in late August and early September.

The major hurricane was Danny, which drenched the Gulf Coast around Mobile, Ala., with an astonishing 40 inches of rain, then slashed north and east, flooding parts of North Carolina. Its weakened remains finally headed back out to sea in Virginia. Three deaths were blamed on the storm in North Carolina.

"Without El Nino, we probably would have had an above-average Atlantic hurricane season," said Jerry Jarrell, acting director of the National Hurricane Center near Miami. "With El Nino, we're a little bit below average. The difference between above-average and a little bit below average is probably three or four or five storms."

The quieter season has meant a lot more to people along the East Coast, the Gulf and the Caribbean.

Coastal Louisiana's fragile sugar crop is doing just fine. Tourism is bustling in the Florida Panhandle. South Florida, with more than 200 miles of highly developed, highly vulnerable coastline from West Palm Beach through Fort Lauderdale and Miami to Key West, has been untouched.

"Whether it's El Nino, whether it's the alignment of the spheres, we're very grateful we've had no hurricanes," said Peter Hillyer, whose home in North Topsail Beach, N.C., sustained $30,000 in damage from Hurricanes Bertha and Fran last year. "I say, `El Nino, do your thing!' "

In the Florida Panhandle, Darrell Duke at Gulf Breeze Bait and Tackle said the lack of major storms means "people can get out and fish, and if they're able to get out and fish - that's better business for us."

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On the other side of the continent, El Nino - the weather-disrupting phenomenon that begins with a warming of the Pacific waters at the equator - has been blamed for hurricanes that have threatened the West Coast.

Hundreds of people died when Hurricane Pauline tore across Mexico's Pacific coast in October. Hurricane Nora - downgraded to Tropical Storm Nora - gave landlocked southwestern Arizona an unaccustomed soaking late in the summer. And both Nora and Hurricane Linda threatened San Diego and Los Angeles.

A tropical storm has sustained winds of at least 39 mph. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when it hits 74 mph.

Despite El Nino, the 1997 Pacific hurricane season, which starts at the same time as the Atlantic one but ends a couple of weeks earlier, actually has been about average in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes, though some of the eight hurricanes have been more intense than usual, Gray said. And more of the stronger storms have hit Mexico.

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