Two national hurricane experts are predicting up to 17 tropical storms and hurricanes this season.

The predictions come from Philip Klotzbach, a research associate at Colorado State University, and Joe Bastardi, the chief hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather.

They acknowledged that similar predictions for the 2006 season were wrong but cited a more active storm cycle this year.

They spoke yesterday at the Second Annual AccuWeather Hurricane Summit in Houston, a gathering of more than 100 weather experts and academics. The experts discussed the coming season with members of the energy industry, whose business can be severely affected by storms.