Like it or not, the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season officially starts Tuesday.

If the National Hurricane Center in Miami - and seemingly countless other meteorologists - are correct, we are in for a very active season.

What does this mean for the Cayman Islands?  The simple answer is we don’t know.  Even in the most active of hurricane seasons, the chance the eye of a hurricane will ‘hit’ any particular place is really quite low. The reverse side of this is also true: Even in an inactive season, hurricanes can, and usually do, ‘hit’ somewhere.  All it takes is one hurricane to hit where you live to make it a bad hurricane season.

In the end, even the best weather forecasters can’t say if a tropical cyclone will hit any particular area during a hurricane season.  All they can say is that the climate conditions are such that they support either an active or inactive season.  This year, there are so many climate conditions supporting an active season that nearly everyone is predicting much higher than average activity. Chances are, the Cayman Islands will at least have some hurricane scares this year.

An important factor to realise though is that hurricanes are not single points that only impact areas along the thin black line of the path of their centres.  Hurricanes are large weather systems that sometimes span several hundred miles.  Even if the path of a hurricane’s eye passes far away from a particular coastal area, it can still cause damage from heavy surf and rains - as Grand Cayman experienced firsthand with Hurricane Michelle in 2001.

The only way to approach this or any other hurricane season is to prepare for a direct hit. This entails preparing our homes, developing a personal or family hurricane plan and buying some supplies.  Those supplies might cost a little money, but most of them are handy to have around anyway, and the foodstuffs can be eaten after hurricane season is over. Preparing for the worst, while hoping for the best, is the only way to ensure we are ready for any eventuality.