Weather experts have relaxed their cyclone predictions for Australia next summer and now say the country will have a “near-normal” cyclone season.

The Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College in London released an updated tropical storm risk (TSR) prediction on Friday. It says cyclone activity in Australia in 2007/08 will be “close to the 1975/76-2006/07 climate norm”.

The forecast spans the Australian season from November 1 to April 30 next year, and is based on data examined at the end of last month.

Researchers Adam Lea and Mark Saunders say sea surface temperatures in October-November are expected to be warmer than previously expected, indicating “near-average wind shear and near-average tropical storm activity”.

“Thus we expect Australian basin cyclone activity and land-falling numbers to be close to average in 2007/08.”

While the TSR service does not attempt to predict the incidence of very severe tropical cyclones due to data reliability problems, Dr Lea and Professor Saunders say there is still a 35% probability that Australian tropical storm numbers in 2007/8 will be above the season average of 12. But the likelihood they will be between nine and 12 is 46%.

There is also a 19% chance there will be less than nine cyclones.