As storm after storm hit the United States this season, forecasters feared the situation could have been much worse. But many of the missed storms were surprisingly powerful.
The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends on November 30th, was one on record, but perhaps not as much as everyone expected when it began on June 1st.
For the first time in a decade, no hurricanes hit the United States, a welcome respite for struggling communities in the Southeast still recovering from previous hurricanes. But that doesn’t mean it was a quiet season overall. A season of “remarkable contrast” is finally ending largely within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s forecasts, except for fewer hurricanes overall than the seasonal outlook suggests.
Hurricane scientist Brian McNoldy summed up the season as “a slightly above-average season with some strange characteristics.”
The number of Category 5 storms was one of the most notable of those features. Typically, only a small percentage of hurricanes become Category 5 storms. This year, 23% of designated storms reached that status, with winds of 157 miles per hour or more, often strengthening quickly in warm ocean waters.
In the continental United States, Tropical Storm Chantal made landfall near Litchfield, South Carolina on July 6 and moved over North Carolina and Virginia. At least six people are believed to have died due to the heavy rains.
The effects of the hurricane, which originated far offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, combined with other storms and seasonal storm surge, particularly hit the coast along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, destroying 16 homes between September 16th and October 28th.
Jamaica and other Caribbean islands faced the deadly Hurricane Melissa in late October, killing at least 90 people as it rapidly strengthened and crossed Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas. The hurricane, which had sustained winds of 185 miles per hour at its center, caused extensive destruction across western Jamaica.
NOAA predicted 13 to 19 named storms in the Atlantic Basin and a 60% chance of an above-normal season. It was predicted that there would be 6 to 10 hurricanes and 3 to 5 major hurricanes.
The season ended with 13 named storms and five hurricanes, but there were four major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or more. This translates into one fewer named storm and two fewer hurricanes than average, but one more major hurricane than average, and slightly more energy across cyclones than average.
Still, the debate continues about how “quiet” the season was in the U.S. considering the initial hustle and bustle.
things to be thankful for
After years of working for the National Weather Service in Florida, Brian LaMarr has become accustomed to people wondering why the season seems like a “quiet” season when a busy season is predicted, even if their area has barely been hit by a major storm or there have been multiple landfalls in the Caribbean.
Lamar, founder of Inspire Weather, said that even if a storm causes damage in an area just a few miles away, people tend to think they missed it if it doesn’t happen in their neighborhood. “I always respond that that’s something we should all be grateful for,” he said. That will certainly be the case in 2025.
If the East Coast trough hadn’t persisted, this season’s storms “would have been in the Gulf or the southeastern United States,” he said.
That trough caused “unusual counterclockwise steering winds,” McNoldy said. This effectively directed that the hurricane “approach the north well before it reaches the United States.”
Lamarr describes meteorology and human forecasting as “trying to predict which twigs will flow through a river.”
“There are large rocks in that river that change the flow and create circulation and small eddies in the water,” he says. This is essentially what happens in the atmosphere, and rocks are high-pressure systems.
Such nuances cannot be predicted when hurricane season forecasts arrive, he said. They are “short-term weather factors that fine-tune (seasonal) forecasts.”
LaMarr said a number of factors make the 2025 Atlantic season stand out.
Among them, he said, people now know what the “Fujiwara effect” is. This weather phenomenon occurs when two vortices, such as a tropical cyclone, move closer together and tend to orbit around a common center point. Imelda and Humberto approached within 765 miles of each other and began to revolve around each other.
melissa’s strength
Hurricane Melissa matched, set, or came close to setting several records, including:
- Thanks to Erin and Humberto, this season had the second-most number of Category 5 storms in modern history, behind only 2005, when there were four Category 5 storms.
- Melissa tied the record for the lowest central pressure at landing. The only other storm with such low pressure at landfall was the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys.
- The wind gusts (252 mph) measured approximately 700 feet above the ocean in Melissa’s eye wall just before landfall in Jamaica were the highest ever recorded by dropsondes, instruments dropped from hurricane hunter aircraft to measure the storm’s environment.
- Melissa’s strongest sustained winds reached 185 mph, ranking it with several other Atlantic hurricanes and second only to Allen in 1980 as the strongest Atlantic storm on record.
The Colorado State University team that pioneered seasonal hurricane forecasting listed the key points of the season, ultimately resulting in fewer storms than the team originally predicted in April.
- Cumulative cyclone energy, an index used by NOAA to describe overall hurricane activity, was 133, about 108% of average.
- Nine of the past 10 seasons have been above normal or very active. This season, there were more major hurricanes than average and more days with major hurricanes.
- There were no named storms in the Atlantic from August 24 to September 16. The last time there were no known storms during the same period was 1992. Before that it was 1939.
The conclusion of Colorado State’s forecast was a reminder that there are only five months left until the team’s first forecast for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, scheduled for April 9th.
Dinah Boyles Pulver, national correspondent for USA TODAY, has been writing about hurricanes, tornadoes and severe weather for more than 30 years. Contact dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or dinahvp.77 on X or Signal.
