Many meteorologists believe that a strong El Nino Season can mean a slow Hurricane Season and thus if the Pacific Oceans are heated up between one and two degrees theoretically this would trigger an El Nino and thus lead us into a slow Hurricane Season.

La Nina is said to affect the upcoming Hurricane Season much more than El Nino, but indeed it is only one factor and things change as the Summer Season starts.

http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-1852.html

http://www.floridadisaster.org/hwa03/el_nino.htm

http://www.john-daly.com/elnino.htm

But even if we get off to a slow 2006 Atlantic Tropical Hurricane Season that does not mean the hot Gulf of Mexico surface temperatures will remain low throughout the Hurricane Season. In fact we know that the Gulf of Mexico ocean surface temperatures seem to be getting hotter an hotter every year. A one to two degree increase there means more significant tropical storms and higher category storms can be expected for those tropical storms which do enter the Gulf.

This season we have seen strong Pacific Ocean storms against our Western US Coastlines; we have seen flooding events and back-to-back intense storms but weather professionals have stopped short of calling it El Nino, in fact the data shows La Nina, which generally means a more fierce Hurricanes Season. So, it appears that we may not have the benefits of El Nino to help us with this Year