Active 2025 hurricane season forecast

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter warns of an active 2025 hurricane season. Among the areas most at-risk of potentially getting hit by hurricanes are the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas.

Transcript

00:00We want to look back at what was a somewhat historic and unusual hurricane season last year,

00:08and you could see all of the activity, mostly in the Caribbean and in the Gulf.

00:14That was what the story was. It was such an impactful year in the United States,

00:17with many of the storms developing close to the coast, as we call it, homegrown development.

00:23The Gulf of Mexico was a focus point for hurricane landfalls this year,

00:27and those impacts, Bernie, occurred hundreds of miles, sometimes more than 1,000 miles inland,

00:34with significant flooding from several storms as well.

00:37You counted up Barrow, which is our only long-track hurricane.

00:40Right.

00:41In early July of all time frames, then you had Francine, you had

00:47Helene, you had Debbie, then, of course, you had Milton here. So that was a lot of

00:54a lot of landfalling storms in the Gulf.

01:00It sure was. And we had significant storm surge damage, also wind damage near the coast.

01:05And that flooding issue was a major problem, of course, with Helene,

01:08with the catastrophic flooding disaster that happened across the southern Appalachians.

01:13But also Barrow and Debbie produced significant flooding hundreds of miles inland as well.

01:18Look at the economic loss, Josh. John, you and I were tallying it up over $500 billion,

01:26with almost half of that from Helene and Milton.

01:30Helene and Milton were the largest contributors to the total damage and economic loss,

01:35but significant damage. Remember what happened in the Houston metro area, for example,

01:39with Barrow, $28 to $32 billion of total damage and economic loss.

01:44Many people are still rebuilding from this significant damage that occurred last year in

01:50multiple states related to the hurricane season. It's why it's so important to be prepared

01:54not only at the coast, but also well inland.

01:57I want to go over our forecast here again. We released this

02:00just a short time ago. The Long Range Department meteorologist Joe Lumber,

02:04Paul Paslock, working in concert with our tropical team, including our lead hurricane expert,

02:09Alex Da Silva. John, let's talk about the takeaways from our forecast this year.

02:16Well, AccuWeather is the first source to make this forecast, to make a forecast for the season

02:21publicly available. So we do that so that people can be best informed and stay safer. That's our

02:26goal here at AccuWeather. And notice 13-18 named storms. The average is 14. So that's a near

02:33average to a bit above average season with, once again, a concern of three to six direct U.S.

02:39impacts. Last year we had six. The long-term historic average is four. So another impactful

02:46year on the way. And remember, it only takes one significant storm to result in a major disaster.

02:52And the big takeaway here, John, and you and I were talking about this,

02:55the Gulf of the Gulf Coast, the Gulf Coast and the Gulf Coast.

02:59That's the area, once again, we're highlighting one of the main areas this year.

03:03It sure is. The Gulf is another concern, all the way from portions of the Texas coast,

03:08all the way through Florida, because we've got, yet again, very warm water. Temperatures in the

03:13Gulf of America already averaging anywhere from two to five degrees Fahrenheit above those long-term

03:19historic averages. So that, once again, raises the concern for rapid intensification of the storm,

03:24storms that do form. So the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas at higher

03:28risk, once again. And remember those impacts. The vast majority of lives that are lost from

03:34hurricanes in the United States are from water impacts, storm surge at the coast and inland flooding.

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