From the “we’ll see, but it doesn’t look promising so far” department…
National Weather Service Public Affairs, nws.pa@noaa.gov
August 7, 2025
As the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season enters its historical peak, atmospheric and oceanic conditions continue to favor an above-normal season as NOAA first predicted in May.
Forecasters from NOAA’s National Weather Service updated the number of expected named storms to 13-18(with winds of 39 mph or greater), of which 5-9 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater), including 2-5 major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater).
The adjusted ranges are for the entire season from June 1 though November 30, and are inclusive of the four named tropical storms that have already formed. In the Atlantic basin, a typical hurricane season will yield 14 named storms, of which seven become hurricanes and three become major hurricanes.
The likelihood of above-normal activity is 50%, a 35% chance of a near-normal season, and a 15% chance of a below-normal season. This updated prediction is similar to the initial outlook issued in May.
“NOAA stands ready to provide the forecasts and warnings that are vital for safeguarding lives, property, and communities,” said Acting NOAA Administrator Laura Grimm. “As we enter the second half of the season, this updated hurricane outlook serves as a call to action to prepare now, in advance, rather than delay until a warning is issued.”
A summary infographic with a pie chart showing hurricane season probability and numbers of named storms predicted, according to NOAA’s updated 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook on August 7, 2025. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30.
So far, the season has produced four named tropical storms and no hurricanes. Tropical Storm Chantal made the first U.S. landfall of the season and brought high winds and deadly flooding to the Carolinas during the Independence Day holiday weekend.
“No two storms are alike,” said NOAA’s National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. “Every storm presents unique, life-threatening hazards that can impact people in both coastal and inland communities. Have a plan in place, and know the actions you should take before, during and after the wide range of hazards that the hurricane season can bring.”
Atlantic basin tropical storm activity is expected to be elevated due to a combination of factors, including warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Seas, and an active West African Monsoon. ENSO-neutral conditions are expected to continue, meaning there is neither an El Nino nor La Nina to influence this season’s storm activity.
The alphabetical list of 2025 Atlantic tropical cyclone names as chosen by the World Meteorological Organization with storms that have occurred so far this season (as of August 7, 2025) indicated by an orange slash through the name. Find a text version of this list at hurricanes.gov/aboutnames.shtml#atl
“Many of the factors we identified ahead of the season are still at play, and conditions are largely tracking along with our May predictions,” said Matt Rosencrans, lead hurricane season forecaster with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, part of the National Weather Service.
NOAA’s outlook for a below-average Eastern Pacific season — with 12-18 named storms — remains on track, but it did have a rapid start with nine named storms. The Central Pacific outlook remains unchanged, calling for 1-4 named storms.
About NOAA’s Hurricane Season Outlook
NOAA’s Hurricane Season Outlook is for overall seasonal activity and is not a landfall forecast. Landfalls are largely determined by short-term weather patterns, which are only predictable within about a week of a storm potentially reaching a coastline. NOAA’s National Hurricane Center provides tropical weather outlooks out to seven days in advance, provides track and intensity forecasts for individual storms and issues watches and warnings for specific tropical storms, hurricanes and the associated storm surge.
Stay informed: Consult the National Hurricane Center website, hurricanes.gov, for the latest about tropical storm and hurricane activity in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean basins. You can also follow regular updates from NHC on X at @NHC_Atlantic and on Facebook.
| Climate, weather, and water affect all life on our ocean planet. NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict our changing environment, from the deep sea to outer space, and to manage and conserve America’s coastal and marine resources. See how NOAA science, services, and stewardship benefit your community: Visit noaa.gov for our latest news and features, and join us on social media. |
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So the update says there’s a 50% chance of being above normal; and an equal 50% chance of it being either near or below normal.
Got it. I love math.
NOAA rarely predict a below normal season. In 2021, they predicted a below normal hurricane season and got the third-highest number of tropical cyclones on record. Expect all forecasts from then on to be “above average” regardless of the numbers.
In a similar line of thinking about managing expectations, its seems obvious how the airlines in the U.S. would respond to pressure to improve their on-time departure and arrival performance statistics. They seem to have increased (padded) the scheduled block times. I don’t blame them a bit, because it’s human nature to be more pleased with being “early” than “late” – even if the duration from boarding to deplaning hasn’t changed at all.
Actually not valid comparison. Increasing block time is a compromise between on time departure and arrival times, and increasing costs. It costs more if block times are increased for several reasons: lower utilization of aircraft, increased fuel cost, increased air crew costs, etc. So they can’t just willy nilly increase block times to appear to be on time or ahead of schedule unless they want to loose money. The block times are constantly assessed for weather, ATC, airport congestion, etc factors and increased accordingly. (or sometimes decreased as well) The airline issue is based on predictable factors with hard data coming in in real time. Weather forecasting is not based on empirical data, but rather computer modeling and the art of the forecaster.
“Increasing block time is a compromise between on time departure and arrival times, and increasing costs.”
No disagreement there. No individual airline could shade its operations to higher cost and expect to stay competitive. But if the entire industry is pressured, then the playing field is re-leveled for all.
In German there is a funny saying:
“Kräht der Hahn auf dem Mist,
ändert sich das Wetter…
…oder bleibt, wie es ist.”
“If the rooster crows on the dunghill,
the weather will change…
… or it will stay as it is.”
Apparently NOAA forecasts are in the same category.
Oh Gerald, we all know that the rooster crowing is what makes the sun rise. It’s not about the weather.
By analogy, more CO2 makes the temperature rise.
In a similar way, our dog barks the mailman away every day. He drives up to the mailbox and she barks continuously until he finally realizes that she means business and then he stops tampering with our mailbox and drives off. She knows that she is providing a vital service to our family, even though we never show appreciation for her diligence and often interfere with her doing her job, by trying to quiet her.
This is analogous to how Net Zero will prevent Climate Change ™
From the above article:
“Forecasters from NOAA’s National Weather Service updated the number of expected named storms to 13-18 (with winds of 39 mph or greater), of which 5-9 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater), including 2-5 major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater).”
Hmmmm . . .
—13-18 in the range of “named storms” is an uncertainty in prediction of +/- 16%
— 5-9 in the range of hurricanes is in uncertainty in prediction of +/- 29%
— 2-5 in the range of “major hurricanes” in an uncertainty in prediction of +/- 58%.
This, despite the two multimillion dollar-per-year Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System (WCOSS) supercomputers used by NOAA, each operating at 14.5 petaflops. (source: https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/noaa-completes-upgrade-to-weather-and-climate-supercomputer-system ).
The current government contract award to General Dynamics Information Technology for the WCOSS supercomputers and their designs, deployments, and management is stated to be $505 million over a potential 10-year period. (ref: https://www.gdit.com/about-gdit/press-releases/noaa-awards-general-dynamics-high-performance-computing-contract ).
Of course, the quality of the output from supercomputers modeling “climate”, particularly tropical storms, is only as good as the “science” that goes into programming them and the “data” they are fed. In this case, it appears the NOAA supercomputer outputs are pretty much equivalent in uncertainty to just predicting the expected number of storms (in each category listed) using statistical analysis (the mean and 2-sigma statistics) of the last five years of tropical storm data.
That is, the predictions might as well have been done using an Excel program on a $500 laptop computer.
ROTFL!
I just had to go and mathematically test my above-noted speculation using hard data. Here are the ranges, mean values and statistical 2-sigma ranges (expressed as percent uncertainties) of the data inclusive of the 2020 thru 2024 tropical storm seasons in the Atlantic . . . these results (rounded to nearest whole number) can be compared to the NOAA predictions listed above:
—14-30 “named storms”, yielding an average of 21 and 2-sigma range of +/- 51%
— 7-14 hurricanes, yielding an average of 9 and 2-sigma range of +/- 57%
— 2-7 “major hurricanes”, yielding an average of 4 and 2-sigma range of +/- 81%
So, in order, NOAA predictions versus the past five-years of data are:
— named storms: 13-18 versus 14-30
— hurricanes: 5-9 versus 7-14
— “major hurricanes”: 2-5 versus 2-7.
The match is much closer if the unusually active tropical storm season of 2020 is not included.
For reference, here is the official accounting for past years (with “major hurricanes” defined as those at or above category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale):
Year Trop. Storms/ Hurricanes/Major Hurricanes
2024 18/11/5
2023 20/7/3
2022 14/8/2
2021 21/7/4
2020 30/14/7
Coin toss anyone?
In addition to season probability score, they assign a confidence in the prediction. NWS hedged on this “50% chance of above-normal” forecast update with a low-confidence rating, ~30%. In their May 22, 2025 forecast, they gave it a 70% confidence in those “similar” predicted ranges.
Why even bother? A monkey throwing a dart at a list of numbers would have a similar 30% confidence level of hitting the outcome as those “experts.”
And TS Andrea should never have been named. It was never more than a low pressure trough, with some very minor tropical storm characteristics that lasted < 24 hrs before entering cooler water and losing all tropical characteristics. With a min CP of 1014 mb, they had to search high and low just to find some winds somewhere at 35 kts threshold to name it. In reality it was a rush to get a named storm in June. Without Andrea, they’d have 3 weak TS’s at this point.
They might be in a race to get to “Humberto”. What a cool name for a storm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Humberto_(2019)
Even better “Hurricane Humberto” since it is alliterative.
Not sure what “normal” means.
Is it a single number which has a low chance of happening…
… or is it a “range” of the number of storms ?
““No two storms are alike,” said NOAA’s National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. “Every storm …”
No completion to the above sentence would be a non contradiction.
Even the seemingly safe ” … is different.” would technically create a form of likeness.
Look, bureaucrats can’t just quietly do their jobs. Especially when their jobs are putatively about making predictions. That’s why they have to spout deep thoughts like maybe there will be more hurricanes unless there are the same number or maybe less. Those storms, that may or may not come, may or may not do more or less damage.
When did “named” storms become a thing?
I watched Fox weather the other day and almost turned into a zombie watching their hurricane coverage. I will not make that mistake again.
The name game started maybe a decade ago, maybe a bit more, when it became apparent to NOAA and legacy media that stories which reported X number of named storms (regardless of strength) get more clicks than actual journalism that sets out to tell much more of the story. After all, actual journalism is expensive….and given a totally dumbed-down public, isn’t even necessary…..or financially wise.
1950 is when they started making public lists with names. 1978 is when they started making lists that included men’s names.
It used to be named hurricanes only with the obviously misogynistic naming of storms with female names in the earlier epic of hurricane namings.
Of course it was humorously derived from “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
According to the gleeful Weather Underground, the hurricane season is heating up – that is a pun.
It is possible that we will incur storm after storm from now on. Weather is difficult to predict a month out. The attached plot is 175 years of hurricane data. For the Caribbean, we are near the mid-point, so the season is a bit late. For the Atlantic, by mid-September, we reach the mid-point. There is a disturbance coming off Africa, so maybe…The stalled highs we have seen recently produce low winds and low wind shear, and tend to block hurricanes from the US mainland, if any form.
There are many, many variables. Weather services cannot resist making their predictions and people forget in a few months. So far, season predictions are – you guessed it – a coin flip.
This statement is factually correct — the 8th (Henriette) and 9th (Ivo) are presently active tropical storms, with Ivo forecast to become a minor (or major*) hurricane overnight — but the “remains on track” seems way too generous to the forecasters. The cyclones originating around the two Isthmus(es/i)…
… tropical cyclones originating near the two Isthmi (of Panama & of Tehuantepec) have accounted for both of the NNE-bound systems in the Gulf of America (Atlantic Basin) as well as the ones NNW-bound along the Mexican Pacific Coast (E-Pacific Basin) and even a couple WNW-bound (toward Hawaii & the Central Pacific).
Who predicted this, or where is the successful Prediction thereof? Yet it is subjectively similar to the 2022 (East-Pacific+) Season, which started fast & hard by early June, spread far and wide through mid-October . . .
On a personal note, having lived two (2) decades in the path of several Gulf & Atlantic Hurricanes (Georgia), but also & earlier in the (supposedly) Desert Southwest, the Extra-Tropical Flooding of the Monsoon (‘Season’) in the latter were worse.
Except that now, instead of just a million or so population (& infra$tructure) back then, there are closer to 10-million in the river valleys (flood plains). The abandonment of planned flood-control structures, starting in the late ’70s (Carter Administration), will bear a most bitter fruit, should the storms of a similar magnitude return, or wouldn’t one expect that?
As a not disinterested hurricane observer here on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, some personal observations. I think this years ‘above average’ predictions will be very wrong. I have three reasons.
I was living in Ft Lauderdale when David went by in 1979. Some pretty big fish ended up on A1A.
Nonetheless, never say”wind” while on the river.
But still a slow early season does not mean the overall season will be slow. The deep tropics will moisten and the SAL outbreaks abate as we get into late August. That happens every season. The worst is yet to come.
Ras Nouadhibou is a 60-kilometre peninsula or headland divided by the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara on the African coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Dakar is situated on the Cap-Vert peninsula, the westernmost point of mainland Africa.
Find these two points on the “Wind Speed” & direction map of the Ventusky site. Midway is Nouakchott at 18°N.
Currently, wind speed is in the teens and moving inland from the ocean. When there is a reversal – from land toward ocean – the atmospheric pattern will be better suited for “Easterly Wave” generation, often precursors of hurricane formation.
The hurricane season usually ramps up in mid-August, so I suggest next weekend (Sat, the 16th) might be the time to put the popcorn on.
I think I read on Ryan Maue’s substack that they had to go back and “review the tape” to declare the second one a named storm.
such a pathetic way to try and inflate the stats.
The pantomime continues.
Giving storms well out at sea names enables the likes of the BBC to claim this is a very clear indication of dramatic climate change just look at the number of storms….
We have recently had a week of hype about an incoming depression called Floris here in UK. When it arrived it blew over a camper van and delayed road works for a day.
That is the scale of the nonsense now typical of 21st century alarmism.
NB We could do with some rain it has been unusually dry this year in the central England area. A lovely summer though and the bees are loving it, great honey producing season. 🙂
Scroll to the bottom of the Met Office’s UK Storm Centre webpage (https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/warnings-and-advice/uk-storm-centre/index) and you do find this surprisingly honest statement:
“What does climate change mean for storms?In the recent climate, there is no evidence of positive or negative trends in windstorm number or intensity. Trends in windstorm numbers are difficult to detect, due to how these naturally vary year-to-year and decade-to-decade.”
Closer to the top they also admit the ‘communication’ slant on why storms are being named:
“Why are we naming storms?The naming of storms using a single authoritative system provides a consistent message and aids the communication of approaching severe weather through media partners and other government agencies. In this way the public will be better placed to keep themselves, their property and businesses safe.”
As I understand it there has been harmonisation between European national met services of approaches to naming storms, with clusters of countries working together to look after designated areas; the UK works with Ireland and the Netherlands. Whether this has resulted in more storms being named I’ve no idea.
They completely whiffed this season so far and are now claiming they got it right. I know! Why not tag a name on every half assed collection of clouds over water! Oh, yea, already doing that. Never mind.
This is not a prediction for this year since it is not falsifiable by anything that happens. It is a crude guess at a probability distribution.
Now wouldn’t that be nice? — if each forecast(er) showed his own (discrete) Probability Distribution function?
One could actually learn something from that, or at least turn it into a futures (betting) market. In all likelihood (no pun intended), it exists but is well guarded (proprietary) intel.
Related to this are the so-called Spaghetti Maps of projected tropical-storm tracks, especially when & where they split (divide, or ‘bifurcate‘).
Bitter experience shows that placing all one’s chips (protective / preparation) on one ‘dominant’ track — or even worse, a ‘blended‘ one that is entirely metaphysical [looking at you nhc.noaa.gov] — gives a false sense of security.
A recent case-in-point, in the days leading to the TS-Helene / Carolina-Highlands catastrophe of just ~ 11 months ago, the Spaghetti map was bifurcated between
— a ‘dominant’ NW-curve over Atlanta & into the Tennessee River Valley, and
— a second ~ due-northward track onto the eastern slopes of the Southern Appalachian range.
Esteemed meteorologist Cliff Mass is on the record lauding the great skill of the forecasters of that (second) track, ignoring that — in the many hours that mattered most — the authorities were actively misdirected from the region that ultimately suffered the blow.
> Climate, weather, and water affect all life on our ocean planet. NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict our changing environment, from the deep sea to outer space, and to manage and conserve America’s coastal and marine resources.
Funny. NOAA actually says:
> NOAA’s Mission: Science. Service. Stewardship.1. To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts.
2. To share that knowledge and information with others.
3. To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.
Anyone getting a creepy mission creep vibe?
I’ll treat this as I treat the 10-day weather forecast, which is the accuracy drops below 50% after 2 days.