From Watts Up With That?

News Note by Kip Hansen

The early predictions for this coming 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season have come out. 

From the group at CSU, we have this:

“Summary

We anticipate that the 2025 Atlantic basin hurricane season will have above-normal activity. Current La Niña conditions are likely to transition to ENSO neutral conditions in the next couple of months; however, there remains considerable uncertainty as to what the phase of ENSO will be this summer and fall. Sea surface temperatures across the eastern and central Atlantic are generally warmer than normal, but not as warm as they were last year at this time. A warmer-than-normal tropical Atlantic combined with likely ENSO neutral (or potential La Niña) conditions typically provides a more conducive dynamic and thermodynamic environment for hurricane formation and intensification. We anticipate an above-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the continental United States coastline and in the Caribbean. As with all hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season. Thorough preparations should be made every season, regardless of predicted activity.”

As usual, the CSU Tropical Cyclones, Radar, Atmospheric Modeling, and Software Team (TC-RAMS), the team built by the late-great Bill Gray, provides their reasoning and basis of their predictions below the summary on the page linked above.   

There is additional data, including deeper historic data, in a StoryMap description of their forecast here: StoryMap

[What’s a StoryMap?  See here.]

Important for hurricane season prediction is the state of El Niño/La Niña – here are the model predictions, provided by Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI):

[Author’s Note:  Predicting ENSO requires models to use non-linear equations, multiple times, in models, which guarantees chaotic results (chaotic as in Chaos studies). What we see above are the results of using the more-or-less the same input data, observations, fed into non-linear models, producing a wide spread of essentially chaotic results, which are then interpreted (the heavy red and green lines) by averaging those results, which by the end of Oct-Nov-Dec 2025,  are spread almost exactly evenly above and below zero.  They call result “ENSO Neutral”]

From CSU’s StoryMap:

 “PROBABILITIES FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE LANDFALL ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING COASTAL AREAS:

1. Entire continental U.S. coastline – 51% (average from 1880–2020 is 43%)
2. U.S. East Coast Including Florida Peninsula (south and east of Cedar Key, Florida) – 26% (average from 1880–2020 is 21%)
3. Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle (west and north of Cedar Key, Florida) westward to Brownsville – 33% (average from 1880–2020 is 27%)”

Other predictions:

Atmospheric G2 and The Weather Company have their own forecast:

But where do those landfalling hurricanes strike?

Here’s two interesting graphics I stumbled across, showing every U.S.  landfalling hurricane ever recorded, produced by Michael Ferragamo [ story here with the original images].

And just the US portion:

There are some interesting blank spots along the Mid-Atlantic Coast including almost all of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

And the mainstream media?  What is their response to this rather mundane news?

Here’s the headlines folks:

Yale Climate Connections:

“Forecasters predict another active 2025 Atlantic hurricane season — Colorado State University’s hurricane forecasting team is calling for yet another unusually active season with 17 named storms, nine hurricanes, and four major hurricanes.”

MSN:

Forecasters Warn of Rough 2025 Hurricane Season: ‘Start Preparing Now’

The Cool Down:

Meteorologists share grim forecasts ahead of 2025 hurricane season: ‘Everyone needs to start planning and preparing’

Yahoo! News

Scientists sound the alarm over the looming 2025 hurricane season: ‘An above-average probability’

The Weather Channel

First Major 2025 Hurricane Season Outlook Released: Slightly Above Average Activity Expected The team at Colorado State University said the season will be somewhat more busy than average due to the lack of El Niño.

Only the Weather Channel  makes an attempt to simply deliver the news.  CSU expects the 2025 season to be a tad more busy than “average”, but less active than 2024.

And that’s the news….

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Author’s Comment:

It is not unexpected to see even these very early hurricane season predictions leading to a bit of overblown alarm in the press.  I suspect it would be the same regardless of the prediction – even “below average”.

It is de rigueur for all the media reports about hurricanes to point out that no matter what the prediction, your area being hit by a hurricane is a big deal, dangerous, and all should be prepared.  When we were living on our boat in hurricane country, we were always ready to run to a nearby hurricane hole  where we could tough it out in relative safety.

The maps supplied by Michael Ferragamo are fascinating.

Thanks for reading.

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