Dr. William Gray on Hurricane season and Al Gore - The hurricane forecasting team, led by top forecaster William Gray, from Colorado State University has issued their forecast for the 2007 Hurricane season. Dr. William Gray has also tore Al Gore a new one for his alarmist theories surrounding global warming.

The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season should be "very active," with 17 named storms, said Dr. William Gray, a top storms forecaster said Tuesday.

Those named storms are expected to include five intense or major hurricanes (Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5) of the nine expected, according to forecaster William Gray's team at Colorado State University.

As far as Mr. Gore goes, Gray called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" on Friday for making his Oscar-winning documentary about global warming. "He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things ... I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans.

The Associated Press notes that Gray, who delivered the closing speech, has long rallied against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity have caused the globe to warm.

Dr. Gray's forecast last year fell short of his expectations, but La Nina figures to be a major differential this season. The added scrutiny this year in part is because last year's estimates were so far off. Forecasters had expected 13 to 17 named storms and eight to ten hurricanes in 2006. But the season produced only ten storms - five of them hurricanes and none above a Category three.