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I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks researching and analyzing all of the factors and signals that go into making a hurricane season active or not active.

I’ll continue analyzing the data and then write up the 2025 hurricane season forecast over the next couple of weeks or so.

I plan on having the 2025 hurricane season sent out to you by or before Monday, March 31.

There are some things that I’ve found that I wanted to share with you concerning the 2025 hurricane season.

First, it appears that the overall season should be near to slightly above average in terms of activity. My current thinking is for a total of 16 named storms, 7 of those storms becoming hurricanes and about 3-4 of those hurricanes becoming major hurricanes. Overall net activity looks to be above average with about 144 percent of normal in terms of the amount of energy tropical systems exert on the Atlantic Basin.

Second, it appears that the current weak La Nina conditions probably will warm a little to a neutral ENSO state during this summer into this autumn. Neutral ENSO conditions historically have led to overall above to very above average activity across the Atlantic Basin.

Finally, the most important aspect of any hurricane season is where any tropical storms or hurricanes make landfall. This is an area that we have exceled in forecasting for many past seasons. My initial analysis of the data seems to be pointing towards a couple of areas that could be of particular concern in terms of tropical storm or hurricane threats this season.

First Area is I think this could be a East Coast year with areas from the Florida Peninsula northward through the Carolinas, Mid-Atlantic States and Southern New England at risk of being impacted by at least one or two tropical storms or hurricanes this season.

A Second Area Of Concern might be along the western and central Gulf Coast from Texas & Louisiana eastward to southern Alabama. Data seems to be hinting that this may be an area to watch for a tropical storm or hurricane impact this season.

As for the Caribbean, current data suggests that there may be a lack of tropical activity across much of the Caribbean this season. In fact, very long range model guidance seems to be pointing towards below average to well below average rainfall across much of the Caribbean throughout this summer and autumn. One area that might be an exception may be across the far northeastern part of the Caribbean, including the far northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. This area of the Caribbean may be at least threatened by at least one or two tropical storms or hurricanes this season.

I’ll be analyzing the impact part of the forecast a lot more over the next couple of weeks. Because of this, there might be changes to the impact part of my forecast by the time I release the forecast at the end of this month.

Again, I should have the full 2025 hurricane season forecast sent out to you by or before Monday, March 31.

The 2024 Hurricane Season officially ends today. In all, we ended up with 18 named storms, 11 of those storms becoming hurricanes and 5 of those hurricanes becoming major hurricanes. It was a hyperactive and very impactful hurricane season. The Accumulated Cyclone Energy index (ACE) was 161.7, which is certainly a hyperactive season.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season will certainly be remembered for the Appalachian flood disaster that Hurricane Helene brought. It will also be remembered by the serious impacts that Hurricane Milton brought to Florida shortly after Helene’s impact. I fully expect to see both Helene and Milton be retired as names in the post season. We cannot forget Beryl, which was a Caribbean Category 5 hurricane in early July.

The total damage from the 2024 Hurricane Season will likely exceed $150 billion in damages based on some reliable estimates I’ve seen.

How Did My Preseason Forecast Do? Back on March 13, I forecasted that the 2024 hurricane season would be an extraordinarily active hurricane season in terms of both number of storms and also in the amount of potential impacts across the Caribbean and along the US Coastline (especially the Gulf Coast). It did end up being an extremely impactful season, however, the number of storms fell short of what I forecasted.

This is what I forecasted back on March 13:
25 Named Storms (18 named storms, so I did not verify there).

12 Hurricanes (11 Hurricanes, so I pretty much verified).

6 Major Hurricanes (5 Major Hurricanes, so again, I pretty much verified).

Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE): 225 (161.7, which fell short of what I forecasted).

Our Forecast That I Sent Out In March:

The Actual 2024 Hurricane Season Activity:

The reason why I forecasted such a busy season back in March was due to the combination of extremely warm ocean waters, the expectation of La Nina conditions and a overall favorable look for development in the Atlantic. Much of this did verify. The big surprise was how quiet the period from mid-August to early September was. While it threw a monkey wrench into the forecast, the extremely active late season hurricane activity certainly made up for that quiet period.

Now, how did my impact forecast do? Back in March, I forecasted that I thought that the northwestern Caribbean, the northeastern Caribbean, the area from the Bahamas through the Florida Peninsula into the eastern Gulf of Mexico would be particularly at risk from hurricane activity during the 2024 season.

Overall, my forecasts of a very impactful season for the northwestern Caribbean, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Peninsula verified very well. The activity over the northeastern Caribbean as well as across the Bahamas was much, much less than what I forecasted, which is, obviously, great news.

I did forecast a high risk for a tropical storm or hurricane impact across the northwestern and north-central Gulf Coast and we did have 2 hurricane landfalls, one on the middle and upper Texas coast and one in southeastern Louisiana.

I also did forecast a high risk of a tropical storm or hurricane impact along the coast from Georgia to the Mid-Atlantic States. This ended up not really verifying, although Debby did bring tropical storm conditions to the Georgia and South Carolina coastline.

From this point, I will shift my attention to monitoring the weather across the southern United States and the eastern United States. I’ll certainly be sending out updates over the next 6 months covering significant winter storms or significant severe weather events. I will also be starting to take a look at what the 2025 hurricane season may be like over the next few months and will send out my forecast probably during March or early April.

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