Here’s your latest forecast.
The nation’s top weather agency, where federal job cuts and staffing shortages are stretching forecast resources thin, is predicting 13 to 19 named storms in its 2025 hurricane season outlook released Thursday.
This hurricane season, which begins in less than 10 days on June 1, has a 60% likelihood of being above normal, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of the 13 to 19 named storms, six to 10 could become hurricanes, which have maximum sustained wind speeds of at least 74 mph. Forecasters also expect three to five major hurricanes, which are hurricanes with winds of at least 111 mph (Category 3 status or higher).
Unlike previous years, NOAA scientists will be monitoring an active hurricane season with a troubling number of vacancies in critical subagencies, such as the National Hurricane Center. Houston’s regional office of the National Weather Service, one of six agencies NOAA oversees, is among the hardest hit by staffing woes with 11 vacancies, including three leadership positions.
Among the reasons for an above-normal hurricane season are the unusually warm water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and the expectation of a neutral sea-surface temperature pattern in the equatorial eastern Pacific. Higher ocean temperatures means tropical cyclones have more heat energy to draw from, which then allows storms to rapidly intensify.
The average sea-surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is running about two degrees above the climate-normal established from 1991-2020 data. This departure is so far comparable to the above-normal warmth in the Gulf leading up to the start of the active 2023 and 2024 Atlantic hurricane seasons.
This is in line with earlier predictions, so that’s nice. It’s important to remember that these are for a range of possible and likely outcomes, not an exact measure. And it only takes one hurricane in the wrong place to make it a bad season, as we all can attest from last year.
Our local leaders say they are ready for whatever comes.
FEMA funding and aid may be uncertain ahead of hurricane season, but Houston-area emergency management officials say they are prepared for the disasters and will seek assistance from the state for recovery efforts if necessary.
In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order establishing the FEMA Review Council to determine whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency is equipped to address disasters across the United States.
Since then, Trump has made cuts to the agency. Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that David Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer, was named acting administrator of FEMA just after Cameron Hamilton, who’d been leading the agency, was fired.
“There is obviously a lot to be figured out,” said Brad Burness, emergency management coordinator for Galveston County.
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Jason Millsaps, executive director of the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, said his county is ready. Millsaps said Montgomery County is one of the few counties in the state with an emergency supply warehouse.
“As we approach hurricane season, our OEM logistics team begins to stockpile supplies and prepare supplies for rapid deployment,” Millsaps said. “We are uniquely positioned to respond to any disaster.”
Millsaps said his office will work with the state for any recovery needs.
“We are confident in our planning and coordination with the state, that any needs will be addressed timely,” Millsaps said.
We are of course worried about what the federal response to a hurricane will be. Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure is to find out. It’s uncharitable to say, but I hope it’s someone else who has to do that.
CenterPoint says they’re ready.
CenterPoint Energy announced Thursday that its infrastructure is now more resilient ahead of the 2025 hurricane season, which starts June 1.
CenterPoint’s improvements, which make up the second phase of the company’s Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative, include more than 26,000 stronger poles, 6,000 miles of cleared vegetation from power lines and more than 5,000 automated reliability and grid switching devices.
The initiative started last summer following Hurricane Beryl, when CenterPoint faced major criticism from citizens and politicians for a poor response to the hurricane.
“The pain and frustration our customers felt was clear,” said CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells. “Their anger for our performance was clear, and it is a catalyst for us to change the way we build our system, we operate our system, we interact with our customers. We’ve done more work over the course of this last year than we’ve ever done in our company’s history, and we’re going to continue that pace.”
CenterPoint completed the first phase of the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative in August. The deadline to complete the second phase, which started in September, was June 1.
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CenterPoint expects the improvements will reduce annual outages by 125 million minutes.
Details about the next phase of the resiliency plan, which lasts through the end of the year, will be announced in June.
“We know that we have a long way to go to improve what our customers experienced last storm season,” said Tony Gardner, CenterPoint’s chief customer officer. “But we will not stop. We’ll continue to work around the clock to make sure that we improve things here in the Greater Houston area.”
I’m sure Whataburger. Look, CenterPoint has invested some real money in its disaster response planning, as they definitely needed and were told to do. If they don’t level up, the response this time around will make 2024 seem like a love letter.
And finally, just because you live farther inland, don’t get overconfident.
Inland flooding is the leading cause of hurricane-related fatalities, not just in Texas but throughout the United States. According to an analysis of National Hurricane Center data, 60% of tropical cyclone-related deaths in the United States over the past decade have been attributed to rainfall flooding.
Inland residents might let their guard down, believing hurricanes are a too-distant threat. Residents in coastal communities, on the other hand, are often well-prepared for a tropical cyclone, having either evacuated or made plans to protect their property from potential flooding.
However, as the effects of climate change, including rising global air and ocean temperatures, have become more evident in the past few decades, we’ve seen tropical cyclones become stronger and occur more often. Records have been broken in the number of named storms in a single season (30 in 2020), the strength of hurricanes early in a season (Beryl was a Category 5 hurricane on July 2, 2024) and the intensity of hurricanes (Wilma in 2005 was the Atlantic’s most intense hurricane).
Because hurricanes are not just a coastal issue, and damage from wind and water can happen hundreds of miles inland regardless of the storm’s landfall strength, the National Hurricane Center is continuing to refine its forecast cone map, which depicts the probable track of a hurricane. The latest version aims to better address all hazards within the probability cone.
While the previous version focused on the storm path and the risks along the coast, the updated version now highlights areas far from the coast that could face hurricane or tropical storm conditions. After the map was used on an experimental basis last year, the hurricane center plans to make this enhanced forecast cone map an official graphic this year.
Again, we won’t know until we find out. This season could range from total disaster to “that was bad but it could have been worse” to “we got lucky this year”. May the odds be ever in our favor.