Q&A of the Day – 2025’s Hurricane Season Predictions vs. Reality

First, preseason hurricane forecasting is based on numerous assumptions about weather patterns and oceans temps, etc. It’s not necessarily surprising that after numerous years of elevated activity forecasters generally errored to the upside this year. With that said, there are a few remarkable aspects to this hurricane season that pertain to a topic I’ve long discussed as being overly discounted in hurricane forecasting... Saharan dust.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You have questions, Brian has answers. It's time for today's
Q and A of the day. This is the Brian
Mud Show. Yes and today's Q and A as we
take a look at this year's hurricane season and what
has been you know, it's been an interesting ride foreshore
and as we take a look one of the historic

(00:26):
things that did come up. It's been a nine season
generally speaking, but there was this and Box's Ted Lenner
Linder has what we discovered just yesterday.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Scientists say drops on, which is a small instrument parachuted
into storms, was released from a Noah Hurricane Hunter aircraft
and measure the staggering two hundred and fifty two mile
an hour WIN reading inside Hurricane Melissa as an approach Jamaica,
making it the strongest hurricane win ever recorded. The reading
surpasses the previous record WIN reading of two hundred and
forty eight miles an hour said during Typhoon Meggie in

(01:02):
twenty ten. The US National Science Foundations National Center for
Atmospheric Research verified the data after running it through rigorous testing.
Hurricane Melissa was a deadly Category five storm, now tied
as the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record. Ever to make landfall.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
So let's take a look at this year's hurricane season
predictions versus reality, brought to you as always by Melissa
and Ashes check mark collections each day I do future
and listener question. It's about all of these methods. You
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(01:38):
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the message right there, maybe for a future q n A.
Today's said this, Brian, what are your thoughts on this
hurricane season? Notice how it just seemed to end prematurely,
with forecasters ignoring the preseason forecast for and above average year.
Even the acting FEMA director just resigned. I know that

(02:00):
wouldn't happen if there are any potential threats left. Okay,
so yeah, sure enough. Technically a hurricane season doesn't end
for another ten days. For practical purposes, it does look
like it's run its course, nothing's happened in November, nothing's
out there for at least the next seven days. I mean,
just not likely going to happen. So also, as you noted,
David Richardson, the acting head of FEMA, resigned this past Monday,

(02:23):
and while media accounts of this largely focus on FEMA's
flotter response in Texas, which many are critical of, it's
most likely the case that he wouldn't step away, creating
a transition within the Federal Emergency Management Agency if there
are any concerns left about this hurricane season. So as
we take a look at what has been the consensus

(02:48):
preseason forecasting for this year's Atlantic hurricane season was above average.
Every single forecaster called for above average activity this year,
and they were all seeing things in kind of a
similar way. I'll illustrate that point here momentarily, and that
was largely due to warmer sea surface temperatures, neutral atmospheric

(03:09):
conditions that were expected, the absence of El Nino and
Latinina patterns that have influenced recent hurricane cycles. In fact,
as we dive in and we see they pretty much
were right there with each other. If you take a
look at ACU, Weather, Colorado State University, and Noah. The
forecast that they put out, I'm giving you the midpoint

(03:33):
you have, you know, ACU Weather and Noah that give
you these huge ranges. So what was the midpoint of
their guidance for ACU weather? They called for fifteen and
a half name storms this year, Colorado State University the
most at seventeen, and then Noah at sixteen. So they're

(03:53):
all pretty much right there at the same place, right basically,
sixteen seventeen name storms. Okay, what's the historic average? Just
over fourteen? What ended up happening thirteen? So hm, yep,
they were off a fair amount there. Okay, So then

(04:16):
you take a look at hurricanes. You had Acueather calling
for eight and a half. Colorado State University was at
nine and Noah was at eight. So again they're all
pretty much right there, just about the same place, eight
to nine. What's the historic average just over seven? What

(04:39):
did we get five? So again, well above average in
terms of the guidance on hurricanes, and then on majors,
this is the one area where there's accuracy. They all
called for four major hurricanes. The historic average has been
just over three, and we did an up with four,

(05:00):
so that's where they got to write. So obviously, this
year's hurricane season, it did not prove to be an
above average one. In fact, it proved to be a
below average season in terms of overall activity and certainly
hurricane activity. And just to kind of like put a
fine point on it, total activity came in at the
lowest end of both the ACI Weather and Noah forecast.

(05:23):
With hurricane activity well blow those forecasts as we went through.
So all three forecasters, they the one thing they nail,
that major piece. So answer to today's question, what are
my thoughts about this, Well, kind of like twofold first
preseason hurricane forecasting, as so many assumptions that go into it,

(05:45):
about what weather patterns are going to be, what ocean
tempts are going to be, all the very different things
that could happen with various different you know, effects during
the season, whether it's El Nina, Ninia neutral, it's just
a guessing game, right level, an educated guessing game. But nevertheless,
so I don't think it's necessarily surprising that after numerous

(06:07):
years of elevated activity, forecasters generally aired to the upside
this year. But with that said, I do think there
are some remarkable aspects to this year's hurricane season that
specifically speak to something that I have long been discussing
and I continue to see being overly discounted in a
hurricane forecasting, which if you've listened regularly you know is

(06:32):
the hair and dust. First of all, the twenty twenty
five hurricane season was the first that did not include
a US landfall in a decade. Let's go all the
way back to twenty fifteen, the last time there was
a hurricane landfall of the United States. So that in
and of itself is a pretty big deal, and it
absolutely stands in contrast. We went through the numbers on

(06:53):
expectations and activity. You know what the biggest miss of
all was by all of them, how many hurricanes would
impact the US. There wasn't a single forecaster out there
that thought that fewer than three hurricanes would directly impact
the United States, and with the high side guidance at
six and we had none and nothing was even close.

(07:15):
So way the heck off there, And by the way,
that also speaks to the Saharan dust situation. But one
other thing that is remarkable as we sit here now,
save for hurricane Nicole in November of twenty twenty two,
which of course made landfall at Fiera Beach. And technically
it wasn't even a hurricane wind to have made landfall
because top winds at landfall were seventy so had gone

(07:38):
back down to a tropical storm. But nevertheless, you can
put an asterisk around that, whether you choose to call
it a hurricane landfall or not. It has now been
over twenty years, over twenty since the East coast of Florida,
since the Atlantic coast of Florida experienced a direct hurricane landfall.
Holy cow, right with every thing that's happened over twenty

(08:02):
years now, and people don't talk about this. People don't go,
why is that happening? We've had record hurricane activity, other
play why doesn't that happen here? As I've talked about
for years, Saharan dust is your wild card. A persistent
season at Saharan does one of the most active, if
not the most active on record, was the greatest catalyst

(08:24):
for this year's below average season. And importantly, unlike previous years,
the Saharan dust you know it usually would die out
around the Caribbean, this year did not. It commonly covered
the Caribbean Sea and into the Gulf of America, which
significantly reduced threats within the Golf, which of course has
been the epicenter of devastating activity in recent years. A

(08:47):
leading reason why. But during the time of record recorded
activity over the past twenty years, Floris Atlantic coast has
gone from you know, having been blitzed with things previously,
to a record amount of time without any direct landfalls.
It's a result of Saharan dust inhibiting activity in areas

(09:11):
that are most prone to reaching our coastline. This season
we saw the impact when it becomes pervasive in the
Caribbean Sea and the Gulf as well. The narrative in
the meteorological community has commonly been that climate change slash
higher tempts leads to more activity and stronger storms, which
independent of other factors, is true. But there is another

(09:32):
factor that appears to still be discounted, and that's the
impact on the Saharan air layer. Higher tempts have resulted
in increased aherent dust activity too, and that is the
ultimate hurricane repellent. Maybe this year's results and how badly
these forecasters missed or result and more attention being paid
to that, but one of the big things that has

(09:53):
to happen is that they have to get away from
their narratives because if they are just climate alarmists that
things will just get worse because temperatures have gotten higher,
then they won't be able to get beyond their implicit
bias to see the actual science that's playing out here
and why, for example, we've not even had a hurricane
impact in twenty years on Flores Atlantic Coast. Just a

(10:15):
remarkable thing securing America.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
The Coastguard honoring the crew of the Cutter's Stone Wednesday
for a recent series of interdictions which resulted in the
seizure of tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine worth
over three hundred and sixty million dollars. Coastguard Vice Admiral
Nathan Moore.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
It represents a tangible victory in our ongoing plight against
transnational criminal organizations and ARCO terrorism.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
The Vice Admiral says the Coast Guard intercepted over five
hundred thousand pounds of cocaine in fiscal year twenty twenty five.
That amount equates to approximately one hundred ninety three million
potentially ill doses. DEA Administrator Terrence Cole says, efforts like
this say of lives. This is how we protect our

(11:03):
country against these designated terrorist organizations. Vice Admiral Morris says
the message to the Cortels is simple. We own the sea,
not you kitten rescue.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
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