It’s the first full week of May and time for our annual update on what the coming hurricane season in the Atlantic and Pacific have in store for us. La Nina has passed in the South Pacific and a new El Nino has not yet formed, so those two hurricane influencers are out of this year’s picture.
But hot ocean temperatures are still very much the story and will have significant influences in both oceans and on both coasts. In the tropics, particularly in the waters east of the Cape Verde Islands of Africa, sea water temperatures are near record levels, although not as hot as 2024. This augers the early formation of tropical storms and boosts their intensity.
Interestingly, the Gulf Stream off the mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast has sagged somewhat south and east. This has opened a wider than usual avenue for the cold Labrador Current to flow southwest along the coast which will keep the water and nearby land cooler than in 2024. This cold water will have a dampening effect on any tropical system trying to make landfall from the Chesapeake Bay northward.
The consensus from the National Weather Service Hurricane Center and Colorado State University’s tropical forecast team is for 19 tropical storms to form in the Atlantic Basin. Of these, they forecast that 9 will be hurricanes and 4 will be Category 3 or stronger. This is on par with 2024, which was much more active than the long term average.
The commercial meteorology company Atmospheric G2 concurs with NOAA but adds that the East Coast south of the Chesapeake Bay may be in more danger than last year. The firm’s VP Todd Crawford noted “Since 1950, 23% of all North Atlantic hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S.”
Crawford and his team have found signs in the forecast models of wind data showing upper atmospherics patterns for the season may steer tropical systems north of their usual paths into the Caribbean from the mid-Atlantic.
It’s only May, but it is time to think about what you’ll be doing with your boats come August and September.
