2025 Hurricane Season Underway
On Sunday, the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season got underway. There has been some activity off the Southeastern coast, but nothing materialized. Meanwhile, the Eastern Pacific has already had its first named storm and could have a second soon.
Conditions in the Central Pacific are quiet as that season begins as well. Cutbacks at NOAA may also come into play this season. Finally, there is one more seasonal outlook to discuss. The latest edition of Hurricaneville’s Tracking the Tropics takes a look at what is happening now in the tropical waters.
2025 WeatherTiger Seasonal Forecast
In the previous edition of Tracking the Tropics, the 2025 Hurricane City forecast was discussed in our wrap-up of pre-season forecasts. Since then, Hurricaneville discovered another seasonal forecast courtesy of WeatherTiger, LLC.
The outlook at the surface indicates that while the 2025 season won’t be as active as a year ago, it will still be busy. Anywhere from 16 to 20 storms is possible with 7 to 9 becoming hurricanes, and 3 to 4 of those reaching major hurricane strength.
More importantly, though, Dr. Ryan Truchelut emphasizes that there is an 80 to 85 percent chance of at least one landfalling hurricane along the United States coastline from Maine to Texas this year. In addition, there is a 33 percent chance of three or more landfalls and around a 50 percent chance of a landfalling major hurricane.
And with the federal government’s cutbacks to NOAA and FEMA, many aspects of forecasting and disaster relief are being compromised. Many National Weather Service Offices in potential hurricane landfall areas such as Houston, Texas are lacking key personnel. While 2025 may not be as bad as 2024 in terms of activity, it may not make a difference if there is that one storm.
Potential Impacts of NOAA Cutbacks
As previously mentioned, there have been significant government cutbacks in the area of weather forecasting and research. Less personnel means fewer activities in the daily routines of NOAA and the National Weather Service.
For example, the routine task of daily weather balloon launchings has been cut back. This critical task that helps us better understand the current state of the atmosphere on a given day, is not being done as often. Consequently, the forecast models are not getting adequate data.
The early season runs of the GFS are usually off the wall, but now with less data going in, the model’s problems could be compounded. Less personnel may also mean fewer flights into these storms to investigate them and provide even more critical data.
At a time when more and more people are living along the coastline, and storms are getting more powerful, the last thing the public needs is NOAA’s agencies, especially the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service being stripped of personnel and resources.
First Named Storm in the Northern Hemisphere
The Eastern Pacific season didn’t have a named storm until July last year. This year, the EPAC appears to be running much closer to normal. The first named storm of the year emerged in the Northern Hemisphere during the middle of last week, and it was Alvin in the Eastern Pacific.
Alvin emerged from a tropical disturbance that developed several hundred miles to the south of the West Coast of Mexico. By late morning on Thursday, May 29th, Alvin was born and strengthened. Within hours, Alvin’s maximum sustained winds increased to 60 miles per hour.
The storm moved into relatively cooler waters and eventually weakened to a remnant low by late morning on Saturday, May 31st. Nevertheless, Alvin did stir up the waters enough to produce large swells, rough surf and rip currents that affected the West Coast of Mexico all the way up to Southern Baja California.
Mostly Quiet Start in the Atlantic
Despite GFS model forecasts to the contrary, there was very little in the way of activity in the Atlantic Basin during the first days of Hurricane Season 2025. There was an area of disturbed weather off the Southeast Coast of the United States that drew some attention on Monday and Tuesday.
Fortunately, this area only had a 10 percent chance of development over the next 7 days at the time. Much of the low risk was attributed to the fact that it was a non-tropical low, and would need time to acquire more tropical characteristics.
Now the area where this disturbance was, just off the Southeast coast, is one of the prime areas for development in the Atlantic this time of year. This area as well as the Gulf of Mexico and Western Caribbean usually have sea surface temperatures conducive for development.
Central Pacific Hurricane Season Also Underway
Besides the Atlantic Basin, there was another area in the Northern Hemisphere opening up shop for the 2025 Hurricane Season this week. On Sunday, the Central Pacific Hurricane Season also kicked off. Of the three basins: The Central Pacific is usually the least active due to the cooler waters there. On average, there are usually 4 to 5 tropical cyclones per year including depressions, storms, and hurricanes.
Looking Around the Atlantic Today
Taking a look around the Tropical Atlantic on this Thursday evening, there are no tropical features to fret about. The NHC indicates that there will be no development over the next 7 days. Currently, there is one wave being watched in the Eastern Atlantic right now.
This wave is located nearly halfway between the Cape Verde Islands and the Lesser Antilles. There is isolated shower and thunderstorm activity to the west. A very vast area of Saharan Dust continues to cover much of the Eastern Atlantic and some of it is approaching the Caribbean and Florida.