Active hurricane season start -- active remainder?

With Dolly winding down, I thought I'd look up some stats to give perspective on the rather active start to the Atlantic hurricane season so far.

For 2008 to date, the season has had four named storms, including two hurricanes, one of them a major hurricane (Bertha).

In an average season to date, we would have had one or two named storms. We'd still be waiting for our first hurricane -- the average date of the season's first hurricane is July 31 (using 1965-2007 average). The fourth named storm would occur around September 1.

Comparing this season to the 2007 season, we had two named storms to date -- Subtropical Andrea and Tropical Storm Barry.

The fourth storm was named on August 14 -- Dean. The season's first hurricane waited until August 16 -- Dean. The season's second hurricane wasn't until September 1 -- Felix.

However, this active start to the season statistically does not necessarily portend an active remainder of the season.
One particularly glaring example of that is 1997. By this date in 1997, we had the fourth named storm of the season -- Danny.

But during the rest saw only three additional named storms, including one hurricane.

That season had a total of seven named storms, including three hurricanes, one major.