Year-ahead Prediction of Hurricane Season Sea Surface Temperature in the   Tropical Atlantic
  One possible method for the year-ahead prediction of hurricane numbers would be to make a year-ahead prediction of sea surface temperature (SST), and then to apply relationships that link SST to hurricane numbers. As a first step towards setting up such a system this article compares three simple statistical methods for the year-ahead prediction of the relevant SSTs. 
Jonathan Meagher and Stephen Jewson