Are Preseason Hurricane Forecasts Accurate? Time is Running Out for Predictions

ORLANDO, Fla. – We’re right on the cusp of hitting the figurative PEAK of the Atlantic hurricane season (Sept. 10) that we Floridians are all very familiar with.

According to the calendar, and all of recorded history, the BUSIEST period of the season is upon us. Or is it?

Right now, we have one active area of investigation highlighted by National Hurricane Center.

Invest 91L is slowly headed west through the deep tropics on a course for the Lesser Antilles. Otherwise, the remainder of the basin in relatively quiet.

What’s going on out there!? Isn’t this the point where the Atlantic is popping tropical systems at the seams?

Things have kind of changed over the course of the last couple of years. Today, I want to break just some of the breadcrumbs down for you all, otherwise we’d be reading for the rest of your Friday.

On top of that, there are still signs of what’s to come. I don’t quite believe we’re at the peak of what the 2025 hurricane season has to offer.

One thing is for certain though: This slow-to-burn pacing between named storms is going to cost the pre-seasonal forecasts. Potentially greatly.

The majority of our organizations that produce forecasts for Atlantic hurricane season activity all pointed their gauges toward the above-average side of the spectrum. NOAA and Colorado State University alike were in the ballpark of anywhere from 13 to even 19 named storms.

Currently, we’re sitting at six named storms. Fernand closed the door on a somewhat active period after Hurricane Erin blossomed quickly into a Category 5 storm. It also stuck with us for a large majority of August.

Now, we’re waiting.

Invest 91L is a disorganized cluster of showers and thunderstorms in the eastern/central Atlantic. Over the last day or so, computer models have quickly fallen out of love with this little low pressure area.

It appears that dry air, and stable air especially, have plagued this system and perhaps given it a death sentence before it even arrives on the doorstep of the eastern Caribbean Sea.

Conditions do appear far more favorable the deeper into September we go. But we’ll have essentially missed the uppermost peak of the climatological busiest moments of the hurricane season.

Does this put our pre-seasonal forecasts in jeopardy? Yes. But there are a couple of catches.

Last year taught us through what felt like brute force that the season isn’t over until it’s over. Long-range forecast models do suggest we could see a similar second half of our 2025 season once the Madden Julian Oscillation pushes in and hangs with us for almost a full month.

Will this fully bring us back? It could. We would ultimately need the Atlantic to fully exploit the period of favorable “forcing,” as it’s called, to keep us on pace with fully realizing an above average season.

That’s where it becomes tricky. In reality, the setup for the Atlantic when you factor in large-scale weather patterns, sea surface temperatures, sub-sea surface energy and tropical waves available to mess around with, isn’t all that bad.

Where the waves keep getting bitten comes in terms of our smaller scale features like pockets of dry air, cut off low centers and extensions of the jet stream that usually resides up north down into the tropics. The Saharan Dust was abnormally low throughout much of the early season as well, so we can’t fully attribute the lack of named storms to that, either.

It appears that’s what likely ends the chances of Invest 91L becoming Gabrielle over the next few days. An upper-level low well above where tropical waves will move around is helping induce a little wind shear knocking down thunderstorms around where the wave is trying to organize a center. We also have a pretty gnarly push of drier continental air coming in directly behind it that looks to wipe it out entirely.

Smaller moving pieces like those mentioned above, can’t be predicted from months in advance. We can only look at the grander scheme. That’s the beauty and the ugly reality of producing predictions for something that occurs a long ways down the road.

Right now, we’re definitely on track to see an average or even a below-average hurricane season. We’ll need to give it a little more time to see if models start to perk up in terms of sensing the improving conditions.

There are several hot spots more than capable of producing a named storm at a moment’s notice. The classic phrase “it only takes one” was never more prevalent than it is at this moment.

So, while things are moving fairly slow right now, it’s best we don’t let off the throttle just yet until we’re well over the hump of peak hurricane season.