ORLANDO, Fla. – Sept. 10 marks the climatological peak of hurricane season.
In reality, the peak of hurricane season stretches from the third week of August through the middle of October.
Regardless, it’s extremely unusual to not be tracking a storm or not be tracking any area for possible tropical development.
It’s a great thing, but why has it been so quiet?
To date this 2025 season, there have been six named storms.
Five tropical storms and one Category 5 hurricane.
You may remember that NOAA and the National Hurricane Center forecast a slightly above-average season prior to the season’s start June 1.
In every metric, the season to date has been below-average.
To date, on average, there should be eight named storms, with three hurricanes and one major hurricane.
From an intensity perspective, accumulated cyclone energy - or ACE - is the metric by which a season is measured.
Even that is about 10 points lower than normal.
If it wasn’t for Erin running up the score with its strength and longevity, the season would be even further behind.
ACE is generated once a storm is named and is calculated until the storm becomes post-tropical or dissipates all together.
Why so quiet?
One word: Instability. Or lack thereof.
In order for storms to develop and grow, the air needs to be unstable. The chart below shows that most of the 2025 season (blue line) has been way below-normal in the instability department.
Currently, instability is much lower than average. The gray line marks average instability.
It’s an issue storms had for the bulk of the 2024 hurricane season as well.
Instability is generated when there is cool air on top of warm air.
In 2024, Hurricane Helene broke a similar quiet stretch and was the start of an extremely active end of the season.
This didn’t happen by coincidence.
As the seasons change, the atmosphere naturally cools. Water temperatures cool at a much slower rate and were therefore still extremely warm through October.
Naturally, instability increases across the tropical Atlantic late in the season.
Rest of the season
In 2024, from Sept. 24 through Nov. 18, 11 named storms developed.
Seven of those were hurricanes, which set a new record for the period.
It remains to be seen if there will be a late-season push as significant as 2024 or if pre-season forecasts will verify, but the lid that has been on top of the Atlantic basin will naturally come off.
The Climate Prediction Center has highlighted a couple of areas to watch during the third week of September.
The western Caribbean and Gulf will climatologically be places to watch heading into October.