BATON ROUGE - State climatologist Barry Keim says there is a push to officially move hurricane season up based on scientific data.

"We're finding that hurricane seasons are getting longer. They're starting earlier and ending later," Keim said. "We realized eight of the last nine years have had what we call pre-season storms."

It's something emergency preparedness officials have been monitoring over the last couple of years--and while residents can't predict how a hurricane will impact them, they can prepare for it, which starts with being properly insured.

"We're asking everybody to take a look at their insurance polices, understand what their policies do and don't do. Make sure they do an insurance check up to make sure they have the coverage that they need and do all these things now while we have blue skies. You don't want to wait until the last minute to get those things done," Mike Steele with GOHSEP said.

If hurricane season is moved up to mid May, it will impact when residents will be able to get certain policies if there is an early storm.

"If a hurricane is imminent and it is within certain parameters, typically along the Gulf of Mexico, carriers shut down our binding authority and ability to write new policy or any type of physical damage or property coverage," insurance agent Ryan Thomson said.

Though, Thomson says they are less worried about when hurricanes arrive and more so about how often they hit.

"It's not about the length of the season, it's more about the severity of the storms and the unpredictable weather patterns we've been seeing in our area and the gulf coast for the last few years."