Hurricane watcher disputes number of 2007 storms By KEN KAYE

A well-known name in hurricane-forecasting circles _ Neil Frank _ is challenging how the National Hurricane Center classifies storms. Last year, he contends, six of the 15 named systems may have been too weak to really deserve tropical storm status.

"They're questionable," said Frank, the hurricane center's director from 1974 to 1987 and now chief meteorologist for KHOU-TV, the CBS affiliate in Houston.

Though it might seem he is trying to upstage the hurricane center, his real intent, Frank said, is to dispute that global warming has led to more active Atlantic tropical storm seasons, as several meteorological studies have asserted. Over the past decade, Frank maintains, numerous systems were classified as tropical storms and hurricanes that probably didn't warrant that status.

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