DENVER — Above-average sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic and a low likelihood of El Niño forming in the eastern Pacific Ocean will likely lead to a busier-than-normal hurricane season this year, a team of hurricane experts at Colorado State University predicted Thursday.
As many as 17 storms are predicted this hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Of those, the CSU team is predicting nine will become hurricanes and four will reach major hurricane strength (a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir/Simpson scale) with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater, according to their initial forecast.
A typical hurricane season averages about 14 storms and 7 hurricanes with 3 of those rising to the level of a major hurricane, historical data based on weather records from 1991 to 2020 show.
CSU’s Tropical Cyclones, Radar, Atmospheric Modeling, and Software (TC-RAMS) Team within the Department of Atmospheric Science cited warmer than normal temperatures in the eastern subtropical Atlantic — where most hurricanes form — along with a low probability of El Niño happening over the coming months (the weather pattern disfavors Atlantic hurricane formation and intensity) as the primary factor in their prediction.
“A warm Atlantic favors an above-average season, since a hurricane’s fuel source is warm ocean water,” the researchers wrote. “Additionally, a warm Atlantic leads to lower atmospheric pressure and a more unstable atmosphere. Both conditions favor hurricane formation.”
The authors did note that their initial forecast has historically had the lowest level of skill of CSU’s operational seasonal hurricane forecasts, “given the considerable changes that can occur in the atmosphere-ocean between April and the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October.”
- The graph below shows how CSU's predictions compare to real-life outcomes of past hurricane seasons. Can't view the graph? Click here to access it full screen.
The forecast — the first of four that will be released from now through Aug. 6 — is based on a statistical model, along with four other models that use a combination of information and predictions of large-scale conditions from across the world. Taken together, these models use 25 to 40 years of historical hurricane season data, which evaluate Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, sea level pressures, changes in wind speed and direction as it moves upward in the atmosphere, as well as other factors.
“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.
Overall, the team predicts that hurricane activity this year will be about 125% of the average season from 1991-2020.
To give you a better idea of how active that is, last year’s hurricane season was 130% of the average and resulted in the formation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton which seemingly came out of nowhere and caused over 250 deaths and more than $120 billion in damages across the southeastern U.S.
What can we expect when it comes to major hurricanes in 2025?
The team of CSU experts not only predicted an above-average hurricane season this year, but also a higher chance that a major hurricane (a Category 3 or higher) will make landfall in the U.S.
The team predicted there’s a 51% chance that a major hurricane will make landfall anywhere along the U.S. coastline (the historical average from 1880 to 2020 is 43%).
There was also a 26% chance that a major hurricane will hit the East Coast, including the Florida peninsula (the average is 21%), with people living along the Gulf Coast (from the Florida panhandle westward to Brownsville, Texas) having a 33% chance that a major hurricane will make landfall there, compared to the average of 27%.
The Caribbean was also predicted to see an increased chance of a major hurricane making landfall with a 56% chance of that happening (the average is 47%), according to the team.
What about the names?
You may be as surprised as I was when I was doing research for this story to learn that this year’s hurricane names (as well as those for hurricanes through 2029) have already been selected.
This season will start with Hurricane Andrea, Barry, Chantal, and Dexter, which apparently has never been used before, before going international with names like Gabrielle, Humberto, Sebastien and Tanya.
The reason for the foreign names is to “reflect the geographical coverage of Atlantic and Caribbean storms,” according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the agency in charge of hurricane name designations.
If your name starts with the letters Q, U, X, and Y, you’re in luck, as no hurricane will ever carry a name with those letters due to how uncommon those names are in the English alphabet.
Don’t want to be associated with a hurricane? As it turns out, the WMO will retire or withdraw names from the rotating list “if a tropical cyclone by that name acquires special notoriety because of the human casualties and damage incurred.”
Such was the case last year with hurricanes Beryl, Helene, Milton and John.
Why should I care about hurricane season in landlocked Colorado?
That’s a good question. In 2022, we asked Klotzbach, the senior research scientist who authors these reports at CSU, why people in Colorado should care.
One reason is disruptions in the supply chain, which affect everyone — no matter if you live near a coastline or the Midwestern states.
“If there are, say, storms in the Gulf of Mexico that shut down oil refineries, even temporarily, obviously gas prices are already extremely high that could potentially cause them to escalate even more,” Klotzbach said at the time.
Another reason? Your family may be spread across several geographic regions.
“Even though people certainly have friends and family that live along the Gulf Coast, the East Coast, it can cause significant impacts of them,” he said. “And obviously, if anyone in our country is suffering due to a natural disaster, I think we all certainly suffer at least a little bit along with them."
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