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Four major hurricanes, including one with a good chance of hitting the United States, will form in the Atlantic Ocean during the upcoming hurricane season, experts said today.

Hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU) predict a "well above average" 2008 hurricane season, with 15 named tropical storms gathering between June 1 and November 30.

SANTIAGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Dominican authorities reported 11 more deaths Thursday from Tropical Storm Olga, raising to 25 the death toll across the Caribbean from the second devastating storm to hit the island of Hispaniola in as many months. The vast majority were killed in the central Dominican province of Santiago after officials, fearing a collapse of a dam, ordered the release of billions of gallons of water into the Yaque River and inundated seven towns along the waterway's path. "We knew the damage we were going to cause below. We did not want to, but we had to," Octavio Rodriguez, a member of the committee that decided to open the floodgates, told The Associated Press. Furious residents said they were warned just minutes before waves as high as a two-story building came crashing down the river, sweeping away cars and sending plumes of mud careening into houses. "They warned us but there was no time ... everybody was sleeping," said 50-year-old Sonia Duran Maldonado, her voice shaking. "They must beg our forgiveness for what has happened." Officials explained Wednesday that as heavy rains overwhelmed the Tavera Dam near Santiago, the country's second-largest city, they decided to release water to prevent an outright collapse. By midnight Tuesday all the dam's doors were open and 1.6 million gallons were pouring through every second.

Tropical Storm Olga has claimed the lives of at least eight people as it lashed the Dominican Republic Wednesday.

The northern province of Santiago in the Caribbean nation was hardest hit, with heavy rains causing the Yaque River to overflow its banks. In addition to widespread flooding, the storm is being blamed for several landslides.

Olga had earlier passed through Puerto Rico, where it is being blamed for killing one man. It later skirted Haiti, which shares the island Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. Haitian authorities have not reported any serious injuries.

Weather forecasters say the storm is likely to weaken as it passes out over open water.

Olga comes nearly two weeks after the official end of the Atlantic hurricane season.

The season began June 1 and ended November 30.

MIAMI, Nov 30 (Reuters) - U.S. weather experts posthumously upgraded Tropical Storm Karen to a hurricane as the 2007 Atlantic storm season drew to a close on Friday, making the year a near-average one for hurricane activity.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center, in a post-season analysis of Karen, said the storm briefly reached hurricane intensity on Sept. 26, with winds of 65 knots, equal to 74.8 mph (120 kph) or just over the threshold at which tropical storms become hurricanes.

The upgrade of Karen took the 2007 season's hurricane toll to six, bang on the long-term average. The 14 named storms that formed exceeded the long-term average of around 10 for a six-month Atlantic hurricane season.

MIAMI (AFP) — Residents of hurricane-prone areas heaved a sigh of relief as this year's Atlantic tropical storm season drew to an end, while experts wondered why forecasts for above-average activity have been so wrong.

A total of 14 named storms, including six hurricanes developed in 2007, making it an average season.

Forecasters had initially expected at least 17 named storms, nine of them hurricanes to form during the six-month Atlantic season that officially ends on November 30.

"The reasons for this year's average season are challenging to explain," said Phil Klotzbach of the prominent Colorado State University hurricane forecast team.

"It is impossible to understand how all these processes interact with each other to 100-percent certainty," Klotzbach said in a report published on Tuesday, which looked at vertical wind sheer, sea surface temperatures and other elements that affect the formation of hurricanes.

Last year also had been quieter than initially feared, in sharp contrast with the record-setting 2005 Atlantic hurricane season when Katrina devastated New Orleans and part of the US Gulf coast.

"The seasonal hurricane forecasters certainly have a lot of explaining to do," said Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center.

"The last couple of years have humbled the seasonal hurricane forecasters and pointed out that we have a lot more to learn before we can do accurate seasonal forecasts," he told The Miami Herald.

While there were fewer hurricanes than initially anticipated this year, two of those that formed in the Caribbean hit land with rare fury, packing maximum sustained winds of more than 249 kilometers (155 miles) per hour. That marked the first time on record that two Atlantic hurricanes made landfall at the topmost category five on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.

In August, Hurricane Dean killed at least 29 people in a rampage through the Caribbean and Mexico. The following month, Hurricane Felix killed about 150 people and wrought a trail of devastation along Nicaragua's impoverished Caribbean coast.

"In the final week of the hurricane season, forecasters say the waters around Florida are clear of disturbances.

No tropical weather is expected today and at least through Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported late Monday.

The weather center in South Florida has been watching the North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico since early May, when the first sub-tropical storm was identified and named. That was Andrea.

If no tropical storm develops, the 2007 season will be the second straight without significant hurricane threats to Florida - following two seasons of almost constant threats."

"Herbert Saffir visited the Mississippi Coast after Hurricane Katrina at the invitation of Gulfport attorney Joe Sam Owen, who represents policyholders in their lawsuits against insurance companies.

Saffir, who lived and worked in Coral Gables, Fla., later talked to the Sun Herald about his post-Katrina visit and his desire to return.

"I'm anxious to go up and see what has been done and see if they're following some of the lessons that they should have learned after Camille. I hate to sound like that, but I think Camille's lessons were wasted, on the Gulf Coast anyway," Saffir said.

"They should have adopted tougher building codes after that. Another point is you have to have rigid enforcement of the codes. You can adopt and write a beautiful building code with all kinds of storm requirements in it. But if you don't have inspection and enforcement of the code, it's wasted."

Sadly, Saffir never got the chance to come back. Owen was trying to schedule a visit for January, but the 90-year-old who originated the Saffir-Simpson scale died Wednesday."

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Noel grew in size as the Atlantic season's deadliest storm passed over the ocean between the U.S. Southeast and Bermuda, heading for Nova Scotia.

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) - Tropical Storm Noel drenched the Bahamas on Thursday while in the storm's wake rescuers in the Dominican Republic headed out in boats and helicopters to reach dozens of communities stranded by floods and mudslides. The death toll in the Caribbean rose to 101.

Noel equaled the deadliest storm of the Atlantic region this year and stands to surpass it. Hurricane Felix, a devastating Category 5 storm, killed 101 people when it lashed the Caribbean and slammed into the Nicaraguan and Honduran coasts in early September.

In the Bahamas, flooding from rainfall overnight forced some people to evacuate their homes on Long Island, in the southeastern part of the Atlantic archipelago, according to Carl Smith, director of the National Emergency Management Agency. There were no reports of injury or death in the Bahamas.