About 2025 Hurricane Forecasts

Updated June 29, 2025

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT FUTURE FORECASTS FROM NOAA AND NWS

With the start on June 1 of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, the National Weather Service (NWS) is in worse shape than previously known, according to interviews with current and former meteorologists, due to a combination of layoffs, early retirements and preexisting vacancies. NWS is the U.S. government's official weather forecasting agency, operating under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a U.S. government agency under the Department of Commerce. It provides crucial weather alerts, forecasts, and climate data to help protect lives and property.

The most troubling developments going into the hurricane season aren't what's happening in the sky or ocean, but rather the systematic dismantling of our hurricane defenses along the coast. Here are links to an article in the New York Times (requies a subscription) and an article at WPLG, the ABC television affiliate in Miami, FL.

NWS is scrambling to restructure the agency in accordance with guidance from the Trump administration's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Roughly 6% of employees at the already short-staffed NWS were either terminated or took deferred resignations in the first round of cuts in late February. While many of the terminated employees at NOAA - including flight directors from the famed hurricane hunters - have been reinstated since, most remain on paid administrative leave, with no timeline on when they might return to work.

Forecast offices safeguarding hurricane-prone coastal areas remain widely understaffed. The full extent of the DOGE-directed cuts across NOAA and the broader NWS is still unclear, but according to government-circulated memos, additional restructuring and further large-scale reductions in force are possible before the start of hurricane season. The office in Houston for example - Texas is particularly vulnerable to hurricanes – is effectively without its top three management positions.

Internally, forecasters are increasingly concerned that the indiscriminate cuts and significant staffing reductions will impede their ability to access critical data and issue timely warnings to the public. Already, about a dozen NWS offices have announced temporary suspensions of critical twice-daily weather balloon launches - a mainstay of the NWS for over 60 years - due to staffing shortages. The information collected from weather balloons has been shown to dramatically improve the accuracy of forecasts, so much so that during major hurricane threats, it's common practice for the NWS to supplement twice-daily launches with up to four launches per day at key locations.

Several of the platforms the NWS uses to routinely issue life-saving watches and warnings are supported or maintained by pricey private contracts, which will now require the approval of the Secretary of Commerce who oversees NOAA and the NWS. Some have expressed concern that the additional level of scrutiny may slow or stop the renewal of key contracts, including the procurement of new hurricane hunter aircraft or the 1,000-plus dropsonde instruments they launch each year, instruments which have been shown to improve hurricane forecasts by as much as 15 to 20%.

Saildrones

Scientists have lost access to a major hurricane forecasting tool. For the past four years, a fleet of drone vessels has purposefully steered into the heart of hurricanes to gather information on a storm's wind speeds, wave heights and, critically, the complex transfer of heat and moisture between the ocean and the air right above it. Saildrone vessels were being used by federal scientists to improve forecast and warning accuracy. But they won't be in forecasters' suite of tools this year. The company "was unable to bid" on a contract for this season, NOAA spokesperson Keeley Belva told CNN. NOAA sent out its request for contract proposals too late, preventing Saildrone not just from bidding, but from pre-deploying its fleet to multiple launching ports on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast in time for hurricane season.

With saildrones missing in action this hurricane season, meteorologists will lack continuous, direct observations of hurricanes' strongest winds near the surface of the ocean and temperatures of the warm water that fuels the storms. The Trump administration's budget proposal would eliminate the entire branch of the agency that does oceanic and atmospheric research, which could wipe out hurricane research activities if enacted. Even if it isn't, the Trump administration could use other means to implement such steep cuts.

FEMA

Recovery from hurricane impacts may also be impacted by the Trump administration cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agengy (FEMA), a U.S. govenment agency under the Department of Homeland Security. See this article on potential cuts to FEMA. Recently, the Trump administration denied Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' request for individual and public assistance following an outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes which damaged or destroyed 500 homes, cars and businesses, leaving behind more than $8.8 million of storm damage.

Satellite Data

EENews by Politico reports that a Department of Defense weather satellite program that collects vital information for hurricane forecasts will stop distributing data products to users on June 30, 2025. The termination of data products from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), managed by U.S. Space Force, could lead to dangerous declines in the quality of hurricane forecasts, meteorologists say. The Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center is responsible for processing the program's data and sending it to NOAA for public distribution.

One of the program's key capabilities is its specialized microwave sensor. This instrument provides detailed scans that allow scientists to effectively see through the tops of clouds and examine the weather systems below, including rain, ice and cloud structures closer to the surface of the Earth. These microwave scans are crucial for accurate hurricane models, meteorologists say. They help scientists keep tabs on the way storms develop and intensify. They also help scientists pinpoint the location of tropical cyclones over the ocean, helping to narrow down track forecasts.

Microwave data is especially helpful for projecting rapid-intensification events, when hurricanes make sudden, extreme gains in wind speed over a short period of time. Rapid intensification is notoriously difficult to predict, and it's famously dangerous - it can cause tropical storms to balloon into major hurricanes over the course of a day, leaving emergency managers little time to prepare.