By Staff Report
Gov. Ron DeSantis drew applause last week in Crystal River when he noted that Florida — and the entire continental United States — escaped direct hurricane impacts during this year’s Atlantic season.
DeSantis acknowledged that the season does not officially end until Nov. 30, but with no storms on the horizon he called 2025 “a positive season for all of us.”
The relief is welcome, forecasters say, but it shouldn’t be misread.
Florida absorbed six direct hurricane hits from 2022 through 2024, four of them Category 3 or stronger. Crystal River and other areas of Citrus County — along with much of the Gulf Coast — suffered damage in all three of Florida’s landfalling hurricanes last year.
Despite the quiet outcome, the same conditions that fuel intense storms remain in place: extremely warm ocean temperatures and a La Niña pattern that reduces the vertical wind shear needed to weaken storms.
The 2025 season produced 13 named storms, five hurricanes, four major hurricanes and three Category 5 storms — landing it in the “slightly above-normal” category under National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration criteria. The only U.S. landfall was Tropical Storm Chantal, which came ashore in South Carolina on July 6.
Mark Wool, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, said part of the U.S. fortunate outcome was “luck,” but several steering patterns also kept storms offshore.
A subtropical Atlantic ridge sat farther east than usual — enough to pull storms northward before reaching the U.S. coast. A persistent trough over the eastern U.S. also brought timely cold fronts that nudged storms out to sea.
The Atlantic even produced a rare “Fujiwhara effect,” typically seen in the Pacific, when Hurricane Humberto drew Hurricane Imelda away from the East Coast.
Still, Wool cautioned that quiet seasons are not unprecedented: roughly one in five hurricane seasons since 1950 have ended without a U.S. landfall.
But, he warned, “Just because we had a beneficial hurricane season from a United States perspective has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what next season is going to be like.”
Globally, the 2025 season will be remembered for Hurricane Melissa, a devastating Category 5 storm that struck Jamaica on Oct. 28, then battered Cuba and the Bahamas, killing at least 102 people. Melissa produced a record-breaking 252-mph wind gust, the highest ever recorded in a tropical cyclone.
Meteorologists say Melissa is a reminder of the potential for rapid intensification in a warming climate.
“Every hurricane season is unique,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said in a statement. “But the overall frequency and intensity of storms in the Atlantic basin may be evolving. In a warming world, fewer storms may form overall, but those that do can be more likely to intensify rapidly.”
That could mean long stretches without storms — punctuated by short bursts of extremely powerful hurricanes.
