AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter warns of an active 2025 hurricane season. Among the areas most at-risk of potentially getting hit by hurricanes are the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas.
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00:00We want to look back at what was a somewhat historic and unusual hurricane season last year,
00:08and you could see all of the activity, mostly in the Caribbean and in the Gulf.
00:14That was what the story was. It was such an impactful year in the United States,
00:17with many of the storms developing close to the coast, as we call it, homegrown development.
00:23The Gulf of Mexico was a focus point for hurricane landfalls this year,
00:27and those impacts, Bernie, occurred hundreds of miles, sometimes more than 1,000 miles inland,
00:34with significant flooding from several storms as well.
00:37You counted up Barrow, which is our only long-track hurricane.
00:40Right.
00:41In early July of all time frames, then you had Francine, you had
00:47Helene, you had Debbie, then, of course, you had Milton here. So that was a lot of
00:54a lot of landfalling storms in the Gulf.
01:00It sure was. And we had significant storm surge damage, also wind damage near the coast.
01:05And that flooding issue was a major problem, of course, with Helene,
01:08with the catastrophic flooding disaster that happened across the southern Appalachians.
01:13But also Barrow and Debbie produced significant flooding hundreds of miles inland as well.
01:18Look at the economic loss, Josh. John, you and I were tallying it up over $500 billion,
01:26with almost half of that from Helene and Milton.
01:30Helene and Milton were the largest contributors to the total damage and economic loss,
01:35but significant damage. Remember what happened in the Houston metro area, for example,
01:39with Barrow, $28 to $32 billion of total damage and economic loss.
01:44Many people are still rebuilding from this significant damage that occurred last year in
01:50multiple states related to the hurricane season. It's why it's so important to be prepared
01:54not only at the coast, but also well inland.
01:57I want to go over our forecast here again. We released this
02:00just a short time ago. The Long Range Department meteorologist Joe Lumber,
02:04Paul Paslock, working in concert with our tropical team, including our lead hurricane expert,
02:09Alex Da Silva. John, let's talk about the takeaways from our forecast this year.
02:16Well, AccuWeather is the first source to make this forecast, to make a forecast for the season
02:21publicly available. So we do that so that people can be best informed and stay safer. That's our
02:26goal here at AccuWeather. And notice 13-18 named storms. The average is 14. So that's a near
02:33average to a bit above average season with, once again, a concern of three to six direct U.S.
02:39impacts. Last year we had six. The long-term historic average is four. So another impactful
02:46year on the way. And remember, it only takes one significant storm to result in a major disaster.
02:52And the big takeaway here, John, and you and I were talking about this,
02:55the Gulf of the Gulf Coast, the Gulf Coast and the Gulf Coast.
02:59That's the area, once again, we're highlighting one of the main areas this year.
03:03It sure is. The Gulf is another concern, all the way from portions of the Texas coast,
03:08all the way through Florida, because we've got, yet again, very warm water. Temperatures in the
03:13Gulf of America already averaging anywhere from two to five degrees Fahrenheit above those long-term
03:19historic averages. So that, once again, raises the concern for rapid intensification of the storm,
03:24storms that do form. So the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas at higher
03:28risk, once again. And remember those impacts. The vast majority of lives that are lost from
03:34hurricanes in the United States are from water impacts, storm surge at the coast and inland flooding.