Atlantic Hurricane Season First Look: March 2025
An early assessment of what hopefully will be a less extreme hurricane season, though in 2025 there are no guarantees.
Fifty-five named storms, twenty-six hurricanes, ten major hurricanes.
No, that isn’t my forecast for the 2025 hurricane season, though honestly, would anything shock us at this point? Rather, those are the numbers of continental U.S. landfalls that have occurred in the last ten years—a garbage avalanche unparalleled since the beginning of reliable records early in the 20th Century. There were zero U.S. major hurricane landfalls in the 12 years between October 2005 and August 2017; in 2024, we couldn’t manage 12 days between Helene and Milton.
If you’re still exhausted from the 2024 hurricane season (or a real winter in Florida, snow and flu) and in no mood for 2025 projections, well, me either. Nevertheless, the official start of hurricane season a couple of months away, and the relative good news is that unlike the confident forecast for a hyperactive 2024, WeatherTiger’s first read on 2025 is a resounding… Not Sure. There are some signals that 2025 may again lean more active than long-term averages, including for U.S. landfall risks, but as of late March we don’t know if the season ahead will lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Let’s take a look at how some key pre-season factors are shaping up, and why focusing more on landfall odds than overall activity is a better approach to seasonal outlooks.
Before getting into specifics, note that seasonal forecasts do not “always predict a busy season”. Since 2016, the consensus of spring outlooks has overestimated the overall amount of Atlantic tropical activity twice, been close to the exact outcome twice, and missed low five times. As the overshoots were 2022 and 2024, both years in which Florida received a double dose of hurricane misery, it’s also a bit misleading to call those busy forecasts true misses. (Our U.S. landfall forecasts were closer to the mark in 2022 and 2024. More on that later.)
The overall vibe contemplating the season ahead is less apocalyptic than last year due to water temperatures in portions of the Tropical Atlantic easing towards normal, plus uncertainty in the El Nino/La Nina outlook.
Historically, Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) between Central America and West Africa during August and September are a strong indicator of how busy the hurricane season will be. Years in which the Tropical Atlantic is at least 0.25°C warmer than normal average two-and-a-half times the hurricane activity and double the U.S. landfalls of years that are at least 0.25°C cooler than normal. All else equal, warmer waters provide more of the fuel a storm’s thermodynamic engine craves.
In 2023 and 2024, water temperatures in the Tropical Atlantic averaged nearly 1°C above normal during the peak of hurricane season, head and shoulders above all other years. Over the last three months, the Equatorial Eastern Atlantic—where spring ocean temperatures are the most predictive of the season ahead—have cooled back into a more typical range. The Caribbean remains extraordinarily warm, though historically that does not tell us much about whether the season ahead will be busy. Overall, while Atlantic sea surface temperatures will probably be more favorable than not for storm activity this summer and fall, unlike 2024 there isn’t an overwhelming tell for persistent, anomalous warmth that would strongly favor hyperactivity.
Nor is there a clear path forward on how La Nina or El Nino, which modulate U.S. landfall risks, will play out over the next six months. U.S. major hurricane strikes are three times more frequent during La Nina events, when the ocean temperatures of the Central Equatorial Pacific are cooler than average, versus El Nino seasons. That’s because upper-level winds over the Caribbean and Gulf (just “Gulf,” it’s cleaner) are weaker during La Ninas, diminishing the wind shear that limits hurricane intensity.
Four of the last five hurricane seasons have taken place under La Nina influences, spurring a breakneck tempo of U.S. landfalls. While El Nino/La Nina spring forecast skill is poor, the 2024-2025 iteration of La Nina is winding up, and any reboot would not occur until fall at the earliest. However, odds of a weak La Nina returning towards the end of hurricane season have been creeping higher in WeatherTiger’s modeling and are now near 50%, potentially hinting at a busier October.
So, unlike in 2023 when the Atlantic and Pacific were flashing wildly divergent signs for the season ahead, or 2024, in which both pointed to a hyperactive year, the early prognosis for 2025 is more muted. Both Atlantic SSTs and La Nina/El Nino considerations lean in the direction of an active hurricane season, but neither are unambiguous signals. It’s a little of this, a little of that.
WeatherTiger’s analytical model utilizes these split initial conditions to project a 40% chance of a hyperactive hurricane season with greater than 160 Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) units and a most likely outcome of about 145 ACE units. That’s about 35% higher than the average annual ACE since 1950, and 10% above average ACE since 1995. This corresponds to odds of a normal (75-130 ACE) or above normal (>130 ACE) season of about 25% and 60%, with just a 15% chance of a below normal year (<75 ACE). The 2025 season has a 50-50 shot of landing in the ranges of 110-170 ACE, 16-21 tropical storms, 7-9 hurricanes, and 3-4 major hurricanes.
Of course, we don’t care about how many storms churn through open ocean—it matters how many hurricanes, especially major hurricanes, strike land. That’s a very different question, as only 3-5% of Atlantic tropical activity happens near or over the continental U.S. In fact, overall activity only explains about one-third of year-to-year variability in U.S. landfalls. In other words, even if you had perfect predictions of how busy hurricane season would be, you still wouldn’t know all that much about how impactful the season would be. And— secure monocles now— seasonal outlooks are not perfect. In particular, since 2022, seasonal ACE models have had the temperamental functionality of a McFlurry machine, repeatedly overpredicting August activity as tropical circulation patterns in the eastern Atlantic shift.
Over the last three seasons, WeatherTiger has been producing real-time seasonal outlooks of U.S. landfall risks, which correctly predicted high impacts in 2022 and 2024 and a quieter 2023. While favored development regions and steering currents are a very uncertain forecast at this lead time, WeatherTiger’s upgraded landfall risk model for 2025 projects a 40% chance that total continental U.S. tropical impacts are in the upper third of all hurricane seasons since 1900, with a 20% chance of landing in the bottom third. The most likely continental U.S. ACE tally is predicted to be around 5 units, close to the average over 1900-2024, albeit with a wide uncertainty interval.
That’s a slightly higher-than-normal threat of U.S. landfalls, but an even more equivocal outlook than our overall Atlantic activity forecast. There’s a cumulative 50% chance of 2 or 3 U.S. hurricane landfalls in 2025, and a 1-in-8 chance of no U.S. hits against normal odds of reprieve of about 1-in-4. There’s also a 50% chance of one or more U.S. major hurricane landfalls in 2025, versus baseline annual odds of about 40%. Remember that any particular individual storm is not bound to background risks: awful hurricanes, like Andrew, do happen in otherwise quiet years. Subscribers, Florida-specific seasonal landfall risk odds are on the other side of the paywall below. Our daily real-time forecasts for ACE and U.S. ACE will return in May.
In short, 2025 is an age of uncertainty and shifting ground. “Ice Road Trucking: Florida Edition” already happened, Pluto could become a planet again, the domestic whaling industry might return, Carl’s Jr. may run out of French fries and burrito coverings—who knows, really. Perhaps amidst the chaos, the most unthinkable outcome of all is also in reach: a kinder, gentler hurricane season. Everyone’s emotional right now, but early indications are 2025 might tilt busier than usual overall yet land in the ballpark of long-term typical U.S. landfall activity. I’ll have a deeper dive on how U.S. and Florida seasonal landfall odds are stacking up in WeatherTiger’s next seasonal outlook in late May. In the meantime, keep your tempers and your electrolytes balanced, and keep watching the skies.
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