In brief: In the Pacific, while TD One-E (soon likely to be TS Alvin) isn’t a serious concern, it may bring an influx of moisture to the Desert Southwest this weekend. On the Atlantic side, it looks mostly quiet for the first week or so of the season.
As a meteorologist who is devoted to communication, it’s somewhat important to keep tabs on what is “out there.” In other words, what are people seeing or hearing about that they might want to know more about or understand? I have a bunch of news apps and weather news apps that I get push alerts for because I’m a masochist in order to accomplish this. And let me tell you: They are itching for the Pacific season to open up so they have something to alert the masses about. Of course, they keep the push alerts somewhat vague and general to give you a good scare and force you to open the app to find out what terrors may be lurking in order to cash in on that sweet, sweet engagement revenue.
But enough about them.
Pacific system may bring welcome moisture to the Southwest
Yes, folks, the Pacific hurricane season is underway now. It officially began on May 15th. Our first depression has formed, and while it’s not expected to become a big storm, it will take on the name Alvin, assuming it becomes a tropical storm.
Tropical Depression One-E is expected to become a tropical storm later today. (NOAA NHC)
From a wind and surge perspective, this won’t be a big story. I am somewhat intrigued by the track it takes, which should send it up into Baja because the moisture from this system is likely to push into the Desert Southwest by later this weekend.
Moisture (green and blue) gets flung into the Desert Southwest this weekend into Monday as the remnants of Alvin are funneled north around the east side of an upper-level low pressure system. (Tropical Tidbits)
That will rev up the rain and storm chances across parts of Arizona in particular but also perhaps Utah, portions of southeast California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Info graphic from the NWS Phoenix on the upcoming weather. (NWS Phoenix)
At this point, it does not look like a major rainfall event, but any sort of tropical moisture plume into the desert can end with flash flooding somewhere.
The rainfall forecast through next week shows that isolated pockets of heavy rainfall are possible as tropical moisture pushes into the Southwest. (Pivotal Weather)
Regardless, it will help cool things off. Phoenix sees highs near 105 degrees this Saturday, but the rain chances will nudge high temps back into the mid-90s, a few degrees below normal. Overall, this should hopefully be more beneficial than troublesome.
The Atlantic stays quiet — mostly
On the other side of Central America, the Atlantic looks to open the season Sunday on a calm note. For now, there are no signs of any realistic attempts at development and most reliable model guidance is showing quiet. That being said, by the end of next week we may start to see some semblance of unsettled weather near the Yucatan. That’s a common feature in early June, and it can periodically lead to development (usually sloppy) in the southern Gulf or western Caribbean.
So, at this point, I suspect that the first 10 days of June will be mainly quiet in the Atlantic. But if I were to at least keep track of a place, it would be that Yucatan region starting late next week. More in the days ahead.
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We hope everyone has had a safe and pleasant holiday weekend thus far. This time next week, we’ll officially be in hurricane season. So, we figured today was a good opportunity to just run through the situation as it looks today. We’ll discuss NOAA’s seasonal outlook, the overall state of the Atlantic right now, a forecast for the next week to 10 days, and a reminder that intensity doesn’t always equate to impacts.
Seasonal forecast finales
First, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) pushed out their hurricane season forecast on Thursday morning. They are calling for a slightly more active than normal season, with a 60 percent chance of active and 30 percent chance of “average.” They predict 13 to 19 named storms, 6 to 10 hurricanes, and 3 to 5 major hurricanes.
A summary infographic showing hurricane season probability and numbers of named storms predicted, according to NOAA’s 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook. (NOAA)
This is right in line with what I think most of us expected, and this is a perfectly reasonable hurricane outlook for this year. The consensus now among most academic and government agencies calls for an average to above average season.
A chart of various named storm predictions from a number of government, academic, and private sector forecasters for the 2025 hurricane season. Virtually all are near to above normal. (Barcelona Supercomputing Center)
Last year, I took a look at how NOAA’s outlooks tended to perform (based on the midpoint of their forecast ranges). To recap:
2024: Forecast 21/11/6 and verified with 18/11/5
2023: Forecast 14/7/3 and verified with 20/7/3
2022: Forecast 18/8/5 and verified with 14/8/2
2021: Forecast 17/8/4 and verified with 21/7/4
2020: Forecast 16/8/5 and verified 30/14/7
2019: Forecast 12/6/3 and verified 18/6/3
Overall, in the last several years, NOAA has tended to do quite well with respect to hurricanes and major hurricanes (2020 excepted) and has had some mixed results with named storms. A reminder than aside from their seasonal outlooks, the National Hurricane Center is coming off their best forecasting year yet in 2024.
State of the Atlantic & Pacific
Water temperatures heading into the season are at slightly warmer than average levels in the Tropical Atlantic as a whole. The main development region, which includes much of the Caribbean is running a slight fever this year but nothing like the extreme one we saw last summer.
Atlantic MDR water temperatures are running slightly above normal but nowhere near levels we saw last year at this time. (University of Arizona/Dr. Kim Wood)
As for the Caribbean and Gulf? Well, the Gulf is in line with 2024’s readings at this time, while the Caribbean is running alongside 2023’s readings. Those, of course are the two warmest readings in the dataset of water temperatures we have for those bodies of water. Over the last 30 days, the Gulf has warmed about 0.8°C, while the Caribbean has warmed north of 16°N latitude and cooled south of there. Basically, the northwest Caribbean and Gulf are as warm as they’ve ever been measured to start the season.
Exceptionally warm water for this early in the season is in place in the Gulf and northwest Caribbean again in 2025. (Cyclonicwx.com)
For the last few months, we’ve been hinting at the idea that there would be minimal signal from the Pacific Ocean this year, as we would see ENSO neutral, or La Nada conditions there. Last year’s forecasts were so dire because in addition to the warm waters, we had the signal for a developing La Niña, colder Equatorial Pacific water which tends to relax wind shear in parts of the Atlantic. We did enter a brief La Niña, but that has since faded and we’re back to neutral conditions now.
On average, model forecasts point to something near neutral this summer and fall, or what we refer to as “La Nada.” (Copernicus, EU Climate Change Service)
At this point, there’s no change in thinking that the Pacific’s state (El Niño or La Niña) should not be a major influence this hurricane season. Other factors will drive the forecast.
With all this put together, a normal to above normal hurricane season seems like the best forecast one could produce right now.
Forecast for the early days
Initially, the Atlantic looks mostly quiet. We don’t see any real signs of anything meaningful at this time. Typically, you’d watch the southwest Caribbean this time of year, particularly if you can get some early season gyre activity around Central America.
Typical storm origin points and tracks in early June. (NOAA NHC)
These systems tend to favor tracks due north or northeast into the eastern Gulf of Mexico or the southwest Atlantic. The Pacific tends to be active in early June, and we have a possible system already there. The first name on the Pacific list is Alvin (Alllllllllllllllviiiiiiin!).
There will likely be some tropical development in the Pacific over the next 7 to 10 days. (NOAA NHC)
In the Atlantic, our first three names are Andrea, Barry, and Chantal.
The unfortunate case of Imelda
One final note today on this year’s storm name list. Imelda will reappear for the first time since this list was used in 2019. For those in parts of southeast Texas, Imelda is a name that may have been worthy of retirement. Imelda killed 7 people, left $5 billion in damage, and flooded people out of homes they had only just recently moved back into after Harvey in parts of Texas. The hardest hit areas were from just northeast of Houston into the Beaumont area, where over 44 inches fell in Fannett, TX.
Rainfall from Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019 was extremely damaging, including for many areas that had not fully recovered from Harvey. (NOAA WPC)
While this will bring back some bad memories for folks, in 2025 it will be a new name for a new system that hopefully goes nowhere near southeast Texas. This also serves as a reminder that storm intensity doesn’t equate to impacts. Imelda, barely a tropical storm by definition was a catastrophic rain-producer in some areas.
Speaking from the meteorology point of view, because we are meteorologists and this is a blog about weather, the upcoming hurricane season has few question marks at the moment. We expect a somewhat active but not crazy active season. We do expect a few more big storms than a normal season. And there is broad consensus on this to this point.
How have water temps done since the end of April? Not a whole lot has changed. The basin remains above normal overall, and the changes over the last two weeks have been negligible overall. The Gulf has warmed some, but the Atlantic and Caribbean have been basically unchanged.
The Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf are all warmer than normal on the whole, though less so than last year. (StormVista Weather Models)
Remember, the Gulf can be prone to some decent fluctuations over shorter periods of time. But in general, it’s warm and has gotten warmer. It’s currently sitting in the middle of the pack of warmer than normal years at this point; not insanely warm but definitely above normal.
At this point, there’s not a ton new to say, and so we wait.
Hurricane season may be a minor social experiment this year
So when we start talking budgets and NOAA and things like that, we’re aiming to do it from an apolitical lens. In other words, I don’t want to travel too far down the road of advocacy or politics. But I feel we need to be honest with our readers about…things. Because this affects our work too. We’ve got a few things to note today.
First off, the White House’s discretionary budget proposal for 2026 was released last week. In a normal world, what typically happens is they unveil their priorities for cuts and increases and then Congress does the messy work of putting something together that works for themselves and can be signed by the president. And in most cases, when something deemed extreme is proposed, Congress will generally say “Woah, let’s tap the brakes there, guys.” Particularly when it comes to critical things. Well, we got an idea of what the Trump Administration wants to do with NOAA and the National Weather Service last week.
From the FY26 discretionary budget proposal. (The White House)
Throughout the budget there are cuts proposed to various elements related to climate and resiliency and mitigation. For NOAA, they’re in line for a $1.3 billion budget cut. Ignoring the political tone of these descriptions above, on the surface it would seem the administration is supportive of weather forecasting, so long as you completely ignore anything climate related. For one, in order to understand weather, you do need to understand climate, so the cuts to “unnecessary climate measurements” are actually somewhat hurtful overall. They are actually necessary.
Secondly, if you combine this with the “passback” document that was releases a couple weeks ago, it’s evident that these cuts extend beyond climate change and will impact weather research and hinder the stated goal above of “continuing to modernize core weather-monitoring capabilities.” To be quite honest, it’s tough to rectify the above stated goals with the commentary the administration has published in the passback document. So which is it? I don’t know. I do know that Congress is supportive in a bipartisan manner of the National Weather Service and their lifesaving, property-saving work and mission. And I would expect Congress to propose nothing short of fully funding the already somewhat underfunded agency. Whether the current administration is willing to go along with that is an open question, of course.
But once more, the above stated goal from the White House’s own document is to focus on weather monitoring an observations. Late last week, Andrew Freedman, who is a journalist I know personally and have a good deal of respect for published an article at his new home at CNN. Between layoffs, “strongly encouraged” early retirements, and pre-existing vacancies, the NWS is a wreck right now. One-quarter of NWS offices lack a “meteorologist-in-charge,” which is the equivalent of the chief meteorologist of each individual office. Here in my home of Houston, as we’ve previously discussed, we currently lack an MIC, the warning coordination meteorologist, and the science and operations officer, as well as an electronic system analyst. There is literally no leadership at the Houston office.
Screen shot of NWS Houston staff page as of May 4, 2025. (NWS Houston)
I want to be careful and clear here: Those that have remained in the NWS are eminently qualified individuals that are going to do their absolute best in a bad situation. These people are dedicated public servants. That said, anytime you’re working in a job where there is a significant absence of leadership, that does absolutely nothing good for anyone’s growth and development or morale. Remember, the Houston area is literally one of, if not the most disaster-prone in America.
Other offices without MICs include New York City, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cincinnati/Columbus, Tampa, all of Kentucky, and St. Louis. According to Freedman, the Goodland, KS is no longer open 24/7. More troubling, per Freedman’s article, 90 vacancies exist among staff tasked with repairing observation sites and Doppler radars. On Friday here in Houston, unrelated to NWS cuts but a glaring example of an issue that is realistically possible in this environment, radar data was unable to be transmitted beyond the NWS office due to a data outage. And it was a critical weather day here. If the radar does go down at some point this summer, it’s an entirely realistic scenario to consider where we’d have issues seeing data as a hurricane approaches. Some people may be willing to take that risk, but I’m not sure that’s exactly prudent.
Anyway, the point of all this is to say: The NWS is an absolute mess right now because of some systemic hiring issues that pre-dated Trump II, Biden, and Trump I, but were made dramatically worse by policies and directives of the current administration. The current set of budget proposals from the current administration would most likely further degrade the NWS’s capability to achieve their mission objectives and will impair all meteorologists (public and private) from providing the most accurate forecasts and making strides in improving them any further. And aside from all that, unless the administration acts with haste to re-hire or hire anew for the many vacant positions that currently exist within the agency, we are looking at a degraded, minimalist NWS just in time for hurricane season. Literally, the actual basic functions of the agency are at risk at the moment. Again, this is fact, not an opinion. This is the current world we’re living in today. Not in 2026 or 2027. Right now.
For other disaster-related news…
Between the above and what I’ve read from the authors below, that’s why I think we’re just going to have to kind of see how things go this year. It’s not a normal environment this hurricane season.
I want to shout out four authors doing fantastic work on the ins and outs of the current state of disaster, mitigation, and resiliency. These are areas we usually won’t wade into for obvious reasons. But if you want to dig deeper and understand more, this is where I’d start. Their work long pre-dates the current administration and has been raising alarm bells for years.
Andrew Rumbach: A senior Fellow at the Urban Institute that writes about place-based plans & policies for disaster risk reduction, recovery, adaptation & resilience.
Samantha Montano: A true disasterologist who is an expert on FEMA, disasters, and emergency management.
Colleen Hagerty: “My World’s on Fire” author that’s a journalist that writes smartly about the intersection of disaster and society, as well as how policies will impact people and communities.
Susan Crawford: A senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Crawford writes about the link between finance and climate adaptation. Her work is excellent.
Following these four will give you probably more than you ever knew you needed about disasters and disaster policy. But in 2025, that is good knowledge to have.
We focus a lot on Colorado State’s hurricane outlook, but many others are beginning to issue their own as well. This includes The Weather Company and Atmospheric G2, which expect a slightly more active season.
Various named storm outlooks for the 2025 hurricane season showing a generally average to above average season expected. (Seasonal Hurricane Predictions)
A number of outlooks are now public, and there seems to be a consensus that most entities buy into an active season but perhaps not a hyperactive one. Recall, last year’s hurricane forecasts were pretty unanimously doomsday, which is kind of what happened (though not in the way we all expected). This year’s are not. But the message should be that it only takes one storm, and you should prepare this season as you would any other one if you live in hurricane country.
One last note: A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change focused on storm surge extremes, and it turns out that we may be underestimating them at a majority of coastal sites due to observational gaps. As it turns out, more data is good. Which leads us to…
Putting the “fun” back in NOAA funding
In summary: There has been some good news recently, but the negatives continue to outweigh the positives.
Obviously, we are watching the developments surrounding NOAA and the National Weather Service and budget issues very closely. Here’s an update on where we stand and some apolitical thoughts on what’s going on.
One of the major issues we’ve discussed recently has been regarding staffing cuts leading to fewer weather balloon launches each day. That continues to be a problem. There has been some minor progress, however. Representative Mike Flood, a Nebraska Republican congressman has been one of a handful of political leaders that has been fairly vocal on the risks of this. In short, he gets it. The good news is that balloon launches are scheduled to return to Omaha, and improvements in launch frequency are slated for some other High Plains and Northern Plains locations. The bad news is that staffing is coming from other offices. In other words, the risk is that we may be creating more problems by solving one problem.
Sites that launched weather balloons on Sunday morning. Better, but not perfect. (NOAA)
A good example of this is happening here in Houston where the local forecast office will soon be without a meteorologist in charge, a warning coordination meteorologist, and a science and operations officer, the top 3 leadership positions in the office. While those will be filled with reassigned employees, it’s pretty evident that hiring freezes, and “strongly encouraged” early retirements are creating a math problem that will only be solved by re-hiring fired probationary employees (which the current administration is against) or bringing in new hires (which the current administration has shown no appetite for to this point). 2 + 2 + 2 is still 6 no matter if the person is in Omaha, Houston, or Fairbanks. The government allowed or “strongly encouraged” hundreds of years of cumulative forecasting experience and mentorship walk out the door in the last 2 to 3 months. So, while there are some positive signs popping up, more must be done. We are objectively worse off in terms of the National Weather Service than we were four months ago and we’re not trending better enough fast enough. Without being overly activist, I’ll just say that these are issues you should raise with your members of Congress if they concern you.
A lot of what is happening is targeting climate change research, but what a lot of the folks enacting these cuts don’t fully understand is that by targeting that, they’re likely to cause significant collateral damage to weather forecasting in the process. One good example of this was the recent failure to renew a bunch of regional climate center funding earlier this month, which caused several data sources used by meteorologists (including myself) on a regular basis to go offline. Thankfully, that funding was renewed, but the passback document unearthed recently suggests it will not be long until that’s back on the chopping block. I am also especially concerned that cuts to the GFDL, AOML, and NSSL labs, collateral damage in this fight, would cause outsized harm to weather research and forecasting. This point continues to need to be reiterated and raised. This isn’t about your stance on climate change, it’s about fundamentally degrading the capability of the NWS to achieve its mission of protecting life and property.
For a unique and helpful perspective on some of the bureaucracy here, I encourage you to follow Alan Gerard’s Substack, “Balanced Weather.” Alan is a recently retired veteran of NOAA and is very measured in his explanations. He is also anti-hype and focuses on the issues of note. A worthy newsletter to tap into.
Another thing to really understand in this whole thing: How much is a weather forecast actually worth? Planet Money recently re-aired a really good feature about the value of weather forecasts. Since 2009, when thinking of just hurricane forecast improvements alone, it’s estimated that roughly $7 billion has been saved thanks to government-driven research. And again, that’s just on hurricanes. It’s a short segment that’s worth 10 minutes of your time.
One of the most common questions I’ve heard because of the cuts is “Are you seeing impacts?” I believe we are seeing some of the issues of the reduced weather balloon launches rear their heads in real time. I have begun to notice that some higher-resolution short term models are struggling a bit more than usual in capturing significant thunderstorm complexes. Of more interest is seeing global models, like the European model do a great job depicting a threat 3 to 6 days ahead of time but then misplacing it within 3 days. Why is this happening? Theoretically, it would fit the idea that a lack of upper air data in a region would contribute to this. Is it officially the reason? No. We have to be careful, as it’s not unheard of for this to happen in spring. But it merits continued monitoring ahead of hurricane season. The takeaway right now is that missing upper air data is probably having some impact on our forecasts but mostly in a “cosmetic” fashion or “slightly higher uncertainty than usual” so far. Time will tell.
