02/12/2025
2025 HURRICANE SEASON IS OVER - Here's the recap...
I will try and address this from a climate change perspective as well and examine whether or not the data supports the fears and forecasts over the past decades that the hurricane seasons will get "worse" due to climate change. Have they?
How do we define worse? More hurricanes? The same but more intense hurricanes? More landfalling hurricanes?
First the 2025 numbers:
13 named storms - average is 14.
5 hurricanes - average is 7
4 major hurricanes - average is 3
2025 headlines:
No hurricanes made landfall in the United States.
Hurricane Melissa which battered the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica was a Category 5 hurricane (see video) and the third most intense hurricane on record. More on 2025 overall hurricane intensity in a moment.
(I hope my graphs are in order)
The first graph shows US hurricane landfalls since 1900 and there has been a slight downward trend over the last century. I don't consider US landfalls a factor in the climate change discussion though since it says nothing about the number or intensity of storms across the Atlantic basin.
Along those lines, 2025 saw the highest ACE (i.e. strength or intensity or power) per storm than any season since 1932. That statistic alone would support the idea that climate change is strengthening tropical cyclones.
However, there are six hurricane basins around the world and looking at the global picture (we are talking about global warming afterall), the ACE per hurricane for calendar year 2025 was actually below normal. But what about the long term trend?
The next graph shows the ACE per hurricane trend since 1980 and there is no trend here.
Finally, in terms of the number of hurricanes across the globe, the bluish graph's top line are hurricanes, bottom line are major hurricanes. There aren't any trend lines in these graphs, but just going by the eye test, it appears since the 1990s, the number of hurricanes has been trending downward, and the number of major hurricanes appears to be about flat.
So my bottom line is this... if you are concerned about climate change leading to more intense hurricane seasons, so far that hasn't statistically occurred. Might it still? Anything is possible.
I want to credit Roger Pielke and Ryan Maue for the research behind this data and these graphs. I seek the most objective resources on this subject matter I can find along with hard data and facts. You can google them and decide if you think they are honest and objective or otherwise.
And finally, always remember even during a quiet hurricane season, it only takes one to hit the US and create life-threatening situations and not just for the coast as we continue to remember the victims of Hurricane Helene from last year in Western North Carolina!!!
