Colorado State University (CSU) hurricane researchers are predicting an above-average Atlantic hurricane season in their initial 2025 forecast report.
The CSU team is predicting 17 named storms during the season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Of those, researchers forecast nine to become hurricanes and four to reach major hurricane strength (Category 3, 4 or 5) with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater.
HURRICANE LANDFALL PROBABILITY
The report includes the following probability of major hurricanes making landfall in 2025:
- 51% for the entire U.S. coastline (average from 1880–2020 is 43%)
- 26% for the U.S. East Coast, including the Florida Peninsula (average from 1880–2020 is 21%)
- 33% for the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville, Texas (average from 1880–2020 is 27%)
- 56% for the Caribbean (average from 1880–2020 is 47%)
OCEAN CONDITIONS CITED
The researchers cite above-average subtropical eastern Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea surface temperatures as a primary factor for their prediction of nine total hurricanes this year. A warm Atlantic favors an above-average season since a hurricane’s fuel source is warm ocean water.
While the tropical Pacific is currently characterized by weak La Niña conditions, these are likely to transition to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral conditions over the next couple of months. There remains considerable uncertainty as to what the phase of ENSO will be during the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October. However, the odds of El Niño are quite low (13%).
UNCERTAIN OUTLOOK
The CSU team notes that the initial April forecast historically has the lowest level of skill of CSU’s operational seasonal hurricane forecasts. That’s because considerable changes can occur in the atmosphere-ocean between April and the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October.
“So far, the 2025 hurricane season is exhibiting characteristics similar to 1996, 1999, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2017,” 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. 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 to 2020. By comparison, 2024’s hurricane activity was about 130% of the average season. The most significant hurricanes of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season were Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which combined to cause over 250 fatalities and more than $120 billion dollars in damage in the southeastern United States.
See CSU’s full forecast report here. The CSU team will issue updates to this forecast on June 11, July 9 and Aug. 6.
Source: CSU
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