It is hot. It is August. It is time to dust the old cobwebs off the cans of Spam and begin thinking a bit about hurricanes.

For those of you who don’t know, although hurricane season ranges through six months of the year, the peak occurrence times are really August and September. Like right now.

Hurricane Dean formed in the open Atlantic yesterday, the first hurricane of the season. Hurricane specialists still believe this will be an active season, predicting as many as nine hurricanes to develop from up to sixteen tropical storms.

Which means we’ll be watching the weather with elevated interest over the next couple of months.

We were blessed with a very quiet season in 2006. The year 2007 has been quiet so far, but, as always, that can change quickly in the steamy month of August.