 In August 1998, the United States Climate Prediction Center in conjunction with the National Hurricane Center and the Hurricane Research Division issued a tropical cyclone outlook, which accurately predicted that there would be an above-normal number of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic between August and October.The NOAA centres subsequently started to issue an outlook that gave a general guide to the expected overall activity within the Atlantic Ocean.Ahead of the 2003 Pacific hurricane season, the NOAA forecasters decided to start issuing an experimental tropical cyclone outlook for the Eastern Pacific, which was designed not to be updated during the mid-season.