With the fatigue of recent storms still firmly in many of our brains, here’s a reminder that hurricane season starts in just under two months.
The experts at Colorado State University are predicting an ‘above average’ season for 2025—pretty par for the course of late.
Citing “above average subtropical eastern Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea surface temperatures as a primary factor,” the CSU tropical research team’s initial forecast for this storm season is 17 named storms (through the ‘R’ name), nine hurricanes and four reaching ‘major’ hurricane status of Category 3-5 (115+ mph top sustained winds).
A season of 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major storms are now the “average.”
“When waters in the eastern subtropical Atlantic are much warmer than normal in the spring, it tends to force a weaker subtropical high and associated weaker winds blowing across the tropical Atlantic,” the team’s release noted. “These conditions will likely lead to a continuation of above-average water temperatures across most of the tropical Atlantic for the peak of the 2025 hurricane season. A warm Atlantic favors an above-average season, since a hurricane’s fuel source is warm ocean water. Additionally, a warm Atlantic leads to lower atmospheric pressure and a more unstable atmosphere. Both conditions favor hurricane formation.
So far, the 2025 hurricane season is exhibiting characteristics similar to 1996, 1999, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2017 (the year of Irma), said Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at CSU and lead author of the report.
“Our analog seasons ranged from having slightly below-average Atlantic hurricane activity to being hyperactive,” said Klotzbach. “While the average of our analog seasons was above normal, the large spread in observed activity in our analog years highlights the high levels of uncertainty that typically are associated with our early April outlook.”
The team predicts that 2025 hurricane activity will be about 125% of the average season from 1991–2020. By comparison, 2024’s hurricane activity was about 130% of the average season.
The Chances of a major hurricane making landfall in 2025 are also forecast to be slightly higher than average: 51% for the entire U.S. coastline (average is 43%), 26% for the east coast including Florida (21%), 33% for the Gulf Coast from Texas to the Florida Panhandle (27%0 and 56% for the Caribbean (47%).
