Hurricane season in the Atlantic is arriving ahead of schedule as the oceans warm, a new study finds. Big storms in the North Atlantic are forming earlier in the year than they used to, and forecasters say this means coastal communities need to be on the alert sooner, too.<\/p>\n

Tropical storms that reach a certain strength are named by the World Meteorological Organization. And the first named storms to develop each year have come about five days earlier each decade since 1979, according to the study published today in the journal Nature Communications. <\/em>Named storms that make landfall in the US, meanwhile, have shown up about two days earlier every decade since 1900. <\/p>\n

That means communities that frequently find themselves in the path of those storms might need to prepare for hurricane season earlier than they have in the past. And officials might want to rethink the timeframe they\u2019ve established for the Atlantic hurricane season, which has officially started on June 1st every year since 1965.<\/p>\n