Hurricane season is right around the corner. The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November 30. Hurricanes can be very destructive to electric utilities due to the long-duration and widespread nature of strong winds and precipitation. Utilities along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts are beginning to revisit their emergency preparedness plans. Several companies even organize a hurricane drill around this time of year to practice storm duties and protocols, so everyone is prepared in case a hurricane was to impact their territory. So, will it be another busy hurricane season?
On April 43, Colorado State University published their first Atlantic 2025 hurricane outlook. The forecast does indeed suggest another active hurricane season compared to normal; however, the outlook has the 2025 season less active than last year.
Conditions leading to a potentially active hurricane season are:
1) Warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Atlantic
2) ENSO neutral conditions
Warm ocean waters combined with ENSO neutral or even La Niña conditions leads to a favorable environment for storm formation and intensification. Data suggests that ENSO neutral conditions are likely for the start of the 2025 hurricane season. However, as late summer and fall approach, there is more uncertainty between ENSO neutral and La Niña conditions. If La Niña were to reemerge, that increases the odds of above-normal tropical activity. It’s also worth noting that chances for El Niño are non-zero (5-15% chance). El Niño tends to hinder tropical development due to strong wind shear.
An active Atlantic hurricane season doesn’t always mean above-normal landfalling storms in the U.S. However, unfortunately CSU’s outlook does anticipate an above-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the U.S. coastline this year.
1) Entire U.S. coastline – 51% (average: 43%)
2) U.S. East Coast including Florida Peninsula – 26% (average: 21%)
3) Gulf Coast (Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, TX) – 33% (average: 27%)
Is your utility prepared for hurricane impacts? Learn more about how StormImpact can provide data-driven power outage predictions. StormImpact offers a unique Hurricane Outage Prediction Model where users can adjust hurricane track and intensities to view best-case and worst-case scenarios to their grid. To learn more, visit stormimpact.net.
To read the whole CSU report click here.
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