Weather Eye with John Maunder

Roger Pieki Jn in a recent study says that there has been no tropical cyclone of hurricane strength anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere so far in 2025.

If we get to June 5 -  which looks quite possible if not probable -  then 2025 will have the latest date on record (since 1970) for the first NH hurricane, breaking the record of Ava, which reached hurricane strength in the Eastern Pacific on June 4, 1973 (thanks to Ryan Maue for confirming — Give his excellent weather Substack a follow).

What does breaking a long-standing record of annual-to-date hurricane inactivity that has stood for 52 years tell us about the detection and attribution of changes in hurricane climatology?

Well . . . nothing.

Motivated by a recent commentary in Nature on Atlantic hurricanes that was all opinion and no data, in advance of the official 2025 North Atlantic hurricane season I thought I’d do a post on hurricanes that was all data and no opinion. The 2025 hurricane season begins on Sunday, June 1.

Enjoy!

Landfalling CONUS hurricanes (top) and major hurricanes (bottom), 1900-2024. Source: Updated from Klotzbach et al. 2018 with official NHC data.

Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE, a measure of intensity) per NATL hurricane 1900 to 2024. Source: CSU.

Accumulated CYlcone Energy (ACE, a measure of intensity) per global hurricane, 1980 to 2024. Source: CSU.

For those wanting to show an increasing trend, NATL ACE per hurricane — use 1970 to 2024. Source: CSU.

How much damage would result if each hurricane season 1900 to 2024 occurred with 2024 societal levels of development and wealth? Normalized CONUS hurricane damage updated from Weinkle et al. 2018.