ABC News Arlette Saenz reports:   In its new outlook for the 2011 hurricane season, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center predicted an above-normal hurricane season with 7 to 10 hurricanes, and 3 to 5 of those hurricanes categorized as major.  14 to 19 named storms are expected total, which includes the five storms that have occurred thus far. 

“We are now entering the peak months of what is expected to be an active season, and now is the time that people really need to make sure they have their hurricane preparedness plans in place because we’re expecting the activity to start picking up even more than it already has,” Dr. Jerry Bell, lead hurricane forecaster at the National Weather Service, said in a conference call today.

These hurricane outlook numbers are up slightly from the May 2011 outlook, which predicted 12 to 18 named storms, 6 to 10 of which could become hurricanes and 3 to 6 could be major hurricanes during the season that ranges from June to November.

(Tropical Storm Emily, imaged by NOAA's GOES-EAST satellite on Aug. 3. Click on image to enlarge.)

Tropical storm Emily is expected to remain a tropical storm as it moves between Hispanola and Cuba, across the western Bahamas and towards eastern Florida, but Bell warned the storm could develop into a hurricane by Monday morning.

“After it approaches near Florida, the hurricane is indicating that by Monday morning it could become a hurricane and then it would re-curve out to sea,” Bell said.  “Right now their track has it barely skirting the eastern north Carolina coast, so the potential for that and then back out to sea.”

Jack Hayes, director of the National Weather Service, characterized the heat in the South as “extreme.”

“I can’t recall in recent times the magnitude of extreme weather or he length with which that heat wave has held its position over the South,” Hayes said.