2025 Atlantic hurricane season

Few storms, extreme peaks

By the number of storms, 2025 was close to an ordinary Atlantic season. The 1991 to 2020 average is about 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes. What set the year apart was intensity: four of the five hurricanes became major hurricanes, the highest share on record for an Atlantic season, and three of them reached Category 5. Accumulated cyclone energy, which combines storm strength and duration, came to 130.8, above the 72 to 111 range associated with an average season.

Forecasters had expected a busier year. Colorado State University's April outlook called for 17 named storms and 9 hurricanes, citing very warm Atlantic waters and a fading La Niña, and NOAA's May outlook also pointed to an above-normal season. Instead, conditions stayed hostile for long stretches. Early in the season a sprawling North Atlantic high steered tropical waves from West Africa unusually far south, toward Central America and the eastern Pacific, while Saharan dust and large-scale atmospheric waves added to an unfavorable environment. In the first half of September, wind shear, dry air and a stable atmosphere suppressed development during what is normally the busiest part of the year.

The site's count of 13 tropical storms includes Karen, which spent its whole life as a subtropical storm, because season counts include subtropical-stage winds of 34 kt or more. Its per-storm peak is left blank on the site, since per-storm peaks use the tropical stage only. The National Hurricane Center and Wikipedia also list 13 named storms, 5 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes from the best track, so the headline figures agree.

Bursts between long lulls

The season started late. Tropical Storm Andrea formed over the open central Atlantic on 23 June, the latest first storm since 2014, and lasted barely a day and a half as a tropical storm. Tropical Storm Barry followed in the Bay of Campeche at the end of June and weakened to a depression before coming ashore in Veracruz south of Tampico. Tropical Storm Chantal formed off the southeastern United States on 4 July and moved inland over South Carolina two days later. All three early storms were short-lived.

Almost a month passed before Tropical Storm Dexter formed from a stalled front off North Carolina on 3 August and headed out to sea. Hurricane Erin developed near the Cabo Verde Islands on 11 August and became the season's first hurricane on 15 August, then its first Category 5 a day later. Erin followed a long, curving track around the western Atlantic and is the longest-lived storm in the site's record for the year. Tropical Storm Fernand formed southeast of Bermuda soon after Erin lost its tropical character.

Then the basin went quiet for nearly three weeks across the climatological peak of the season. The only other season of the satellite era with no named storm active between the end of August and mid-September was 1992. The lull ended on 17 September with Hurricane Gabrielle, and late September brought a cluster of hurricanes: Hurricane Humberto formed on 24 September and Hurricane Imelda a few days later closer to the Bahamas.

October produced four more storms. Tropical Storm Jerry formed on 7 October and passed just east of the northern Leeward Islands. Karen formed as a subtropical storm far to the northwest of the Azores, and Tropical Storm Lorenzo spun up briefly in the eastern Atlantic. The last and strongest system, Hurricane Melissa, formed in the central Caribbean on 21 October. Its final tropical-stage observation on 31 October closed the season, and no storms formed in November.

Three Category 5 hurricanes

Hurricane Erin rapidly intensified on 16 August, strengthening from Category 4 to Category 5 within six hours according to Air Force reconnaissance, and peaked at 140 kt with a pressure of 913 hPa north of the northern Leeward Islands. Eyewall replacement cycles then weakened it and broadened its wind field as it turned north, east of the Bahamas.

Hurricane Gabrielle rapidly intensified on 21 and 22 September and peaked at 120 kt, Category 4, about 170 nautical miles east of Bermuda on 23 September. Hurricane Humberto followed almost immediately, reaching 140 kt late on 27 September with a minimum pressure of 918 hPa north-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. A 36-hour eyewall replacement cycle then weakened it, and both storms stayed over open water at their peaks.

Hurricane Melissa was in a class of its own. After drifting over the warm central Caribbean under westerly shear for several days, it began rapid intensification on 25 October, reached Category 5 on 27 October and peaked at 165 kt with a pressure of 892 hPa on 28 October, about 40 nautical miles south-southwest of New Hope, Jamaica. That peak wind ties Hurricane Allen of 1980 for the highest on record in the Atlantic, and the pressure ties the 1935 Labor Day hurricane for third lowest, behind Wilma and Gilbert. A NOAA dropsonde in Melissa measured a 219 kt instantaneous wind, the highest recorded by a dropsonde in any tropical cyclone.

Landfalls and impacts

Hurricane Melissa made landfall near New Hope in southwestern Jamaica around 17:25 UTC on 28 October with estimated winds of 160 kt and a pressure of 897 hPa, the strongest landfall on record in Jamaica and tied for the strongest landfall by wind in the Atlantic. Extreme winds destroyed nearly all wooden structures in western Jamaica, and storm surge was estimated at 7 to 11 feet above ground near Crawford and Black River. Melissa crossed the island, then struck eastern Cuba near Chivirico as a 100 kt Category 3 hurricane early on 29 October, where more than 900,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.

The National Hurricane Center attributes at least 93 deaths to Melissa: 45 in Jamaica, 43 in Haiti, where prolonged rain caused severe flooding, and 5 elsewhere, including 3 in Panama and 2 indirect deaths in a relief-flight crash in Florida. A breakdown into direct and indirect deaths was not available for most of them, and leptospirosis deaths in Jamaica after the storm are not included. Physical damage in Jamaica alone was estimated at 12.2 billion US dollars as of March 2026, based on World Bank figures, equal to 41 percent of the country's 2024 gross domestic product. The World Meteorological Organization retired the name Melissa in March 2026 and replaced it with Molly.

Tropical Storm Barry's rain flooded parts of eastern Mexico and caused at least 8 direct deaths there, with at least 5.64 million US dollars in damage reported by Mexican state governments. Tropical Storm Chantal came ashore near Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, as a 45 kt tropical storm and produced severe freshwater flooding in central North Carolina, where Orange, Durham and Chatham counties were hardest hit. It caused 6 direct deaths, and the insurance firm Gallagher Re put United States damage at about 500 million US dollars. Chantal was the only storm of the year to make landfall in the United States, and 2025 was the first season since 2015 without a United States hurricane landfall.

Hurricane Erin never struck land as a hurricane, but it reached the Cabo Verde Islands as a newly formed tropical storm and its large wind field and swells affected a long stretch of coastline. The National Hurricane Center counts 13 direct deaths: 7 from flooding on São Vicente, 3 from rip currents in Puerto Rico, 1 in the Dominican Republic and 2 from rip currents in New York and New Hampshire. Surf breached dunes on the North Carolina Outer Banks, where damage was estimated at about 3.1 million US dollars.

Hurricane Imelda's precursor brought flooding rain to the Greater Antilles, and Imelda caused 2 direct deaths in Santiago de Cuba province, with a third death in Puerto Rico attributed to the parent tropical wave. Imelda crossed Great Abaco in the Bahamas as a 45 kt tropical storm on 29 September and later passed just south of Bermuda as a Category 1 hurricane. Tropical Storm Jerry caused 1 direct death, a driver swept away by floodwaters in Guadeloupe. Post-tropical Gabrielle brought hurricane-force gusts to the Azores, with generally light damage and no direct deaths.

Records and forecasting

Three Category 5 hurricanes in one year is the second highest total on record, behind the four of 2005. On 30 September, Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda came within about 405 nautical miles of each other, the closest approach of two Atlantic hurricanes since the satellite era began in the mid-1960s. Karen formed near 43.5°N, 34.8°W, farther north than any other tropical or subtropical cyclone in the National Hurricane Center's records, over sea surface temperatures of only about 20 to 22°C.

The name Dexter, which replaced Dorian on the rotating list, was used for the first time. The season's rapid intensifiers also tested forecasters: a post-season National Hurricane Center review found that storm intensity was about 50 percent harder to predict than usual, and official intensity errors for Humberto were well above the five-year average. On track, the Google DeepMind ensemble mean was the best-performing model for Humberto out to 48 hours.