Amid a flurry of new data showing a dramatic increase in the water temperatures in the north Atlantic ocean, forecasters Monday said something of a perfect storm is developing, and raised the specter that a major hurricane will threaten New England this summer.

"The chances of a hurricane hitting the East Coast are exceptionally high," said Ken Reeves, the director of forecast operations at AccuWeather in State College, Pa.

Conditions are prime for a major tropical system to race up the Eastern Seaboard, maintaining its strength when it encounters the warm waters off the Middle Atlantic coast, he said. A buoy 200 miles off the New Jersey coast recorded a water temperature of 70 degrees in mid-April. It's typically 42 degrees at that time.

"It's only a matter of time before a major landfall happens in New England," Reeves said. "It could be this year."

Though Hurricane Gloria was the last storm to directly hit the region when it struck Connecticut as a robust Category 2 storm in September 1985, "The Long Island Express" storm in 1938 devastated Danbury with flooding and wind damage