Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
Experts have always said that it’s never too early to start preparing, especially when it comes to hurricane season. This year, that may be truer than ever.
An early start. Some forecasters are warning that the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season could get an early start this year. While hurricane season officially starts on June 1, there’s a chance that a storm could form before that date.
It’s happened before. As USA Today points out, 15 hurricanes have formed before June since 2003. Of those, 11 formed in May.
This year, AccuWeather forecasters say that a storm could form between May 15 and May 22, though the chances are low.
"We're coming out of the winter season, so we want people to start transitioning their mindset into tropical mode as we headed to the end of May, because there could be something lurking down there in the middle to late portions of the month," Alex DaSilva, a hurricane expert with AccuWeather, said.
Why might the season start earlier this year? Forecasters attribute the season’s potential early start to something called a gyre, which is a large system of rotating ocean currents. In this case, the gyre might be developing around Central America.
While the gyre itself usually become a hurricane, it can foster the conditions for a hurricane to form, experts said.
Another reason we might get an early storm is because of the warm ocean temperatures. Warm waters serve as fuel for hurricanes, and sea surface temperatures are higher than usual in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.
An above-average hurricane season. In addition to the possible early start, researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) also warned that they predicted a hurricane season with above-average activity. The official season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
The CSU team is expecting a total of 17 named storms and 9 hurricanes this year and point to the above-average sea surface temperatures as the primary factor. Of the 9 hurricanes, researchers anticipate that four will become major storms (Category 4 or 5) and reach sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.
The U.S. impact. CSU researchers also included hurricane landfall probability in their predictions.
They state that there is a 51% chance of major hurricanes making landfall in 2025 on the entire U.S. coastline. On the East Coast, including the Florida Peninsula, the probability is 26%. Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast from the Florida panhandle to South Texas is 33%.
Image | NASA
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