Damage from 2024's Hurricane Helene.
U. S. government funding cuts to ocean research could hurt the ability to predict the paths and impact of hurricanes this summer.
University of Arizona Hydrology and Atmospheric scientist Xubin Zeng and his team are predicting a normal hurricane season in 2025. But he adds funding reductions for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, could impact the team’s revised assessment next month.
“We count on NOAA to provide computational data, but these days with all the uncertainties with the government, we don’t know,” he said.
The group led by Zeng and fellow researcher Kyle Davis expects seven hurricanes to emerge from the North Atlantic this summer, with at least three becoming major, powerful storms. Zeng says one factor behind the forecast is the relative temperature of the part of the ocean where cyclones and tropical storms begin to form.
“The ocean temperatures are not as warm as in the past two years.”
The UA forecasters have specialized in watching conditions in the North Atlantic for several years and have delivered accurate forecasts for the region to international hurricane watchers.
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