The Atlantic coast of the United States is set to experience an active and dynamic hurricane season in a possible repeat of last year’s lineup of devastating storm systems, experts warn.
As many as 18 hurricanes are expected to sweep across the eastern United States after the stormy season begins on June 1, according to a report from Accuweather.
Experts say three to six of those named storms will reach or exceed Category 3 strength in the continental United States in 2025.
The regions most at risk for the powerful storms will be the Gulf coast, the ocean-side of Florida’s panhandle, the Carolinas, and Atlantic Canada, according to that report.
“Those are the main areas but it’s still possible that we can see a hurricane strike any of the areas in between,” Accuweather meteorologist Isaac Longley told The Post.
New York, however, may be in the clear.
“It’s really tough to get a system to curve up the East Coast and actually make landfall. It would have to ‘phase’ with another storm system that would move across the country,” Longley said. “You have to have perfect timing.”
One major factor determining the strength and severity of the storms is the water temperature in the Atlantic Ocean, which experts say is currently above average.
“Water temperatures across much of the Atlantic Ocean, especially the central north Atlantic across the Caribbean and into the Gulf of [America] are currently above average as much as 1 to even 2 degrees Celsius,” Longley said.
According to the meteorological metric “accumulated cyclone energy” (ACE), storms in the 2025 season will have an accumulated power of between 125 and 175 — right above the 30-year historical average of 123, Accuweather reported.
Major storms are affected by two geographic entities that have little to do with the continent — the Bermuda-Azores high and the west coast of Africa.
The direction of tropical storms is affected by the behavior of the Bermuda-Azores high — a semi-permanent, highly pressurized, subtropical area in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Similarly, weather conditions in western Africa can influence air temperature and thus have an impact on storms in the continental US. Air systems that are currently manifesting over the horn of Africa will travel across the ocean and become mid-to-late season hurricanes or tropical storms.
Currently, air temperatures off of Africa are low, indicating that there could be a merciful lull in the latter half of the storm season.
“That area [of Africa] is actually quite a bit below average so that may delay at least some storm potential until some of those waves reach the central Atlantic Ocean,” Longley said.
The 2025 hurricane season will end on Nov. 30.
Last year, two major hurricanes — Milton and Helene — killed hundreds of Americans and cost billions of dollars in damages across Florida, Texas, and the southeast.
Read the full article here
