NOAA forecasts an above-average 2025 hurricane season with 13-19 named storms, 6-10 hurricanes, and 3-5 major hurricanes, citing warm ocean temperatures and weak wind shear. Colorado State University predicts 17 storms and a 51% chance of a major U.S. hurricane. Amid this, NOAA and FEMA face significant cuts and staff reductions under the Trump administration, raising concerns about forecast accuracy and disaster response capacity. FEMA leadership turmoil and shifting disaster management to states complicate preparedness. Local officials express uncertainty but remain committed to protecting residents. Budget proposals threaten research and grant programs vital for improved forecasting and resilience efforts.
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expect above-average hurricane activity this season.
The federal agency, in its annual outlook released Thursday, predicted 13 to 19 named storms, including six to 10 hurricanes. Of those, it expects three to five major hurricanes of category 3, 4 or 5 strength, packing winds of 111 mph or greater.
The agency said there was a 60% chance of an above-normal season, a 30% chance of a near-normal season and a 10% chance of a below-normal season. The forecast represents an estimate of activity, not number of landfalls.
The average season features 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes, according to NOAA. The season begins Sunday, June 1, and ends Nov. 30.
“We’re ready here at NOAA,” said Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service, during a news briefing held in Gretna, to mark 20 years since Hurricane Katrina. “Are you?”
NOAA based its forecast on a confluence of factors, including warmer than average ocean temperatures, potentially weak wind shear and the possibility of higher activity from the West African Monsoon, a primary starting point for Atlantic hurricanes. Warmer oceans fuel storms with more energy, while weaker winds allow them to develop without disruption.
Forecasters at Colorado State University also anticipate an above-average season, with 17 named storms — including nine hurricanes, four of them major. The forecasters predicted activity would be about 125% of that during an average season between 1991 and 2020.
By comparison, activity in 2024 was about 130% of an average season’s during that time. The 2024 season will be best-remembered for hurricanes Helene and Milton, which together caused more than 250 fatalities and $120 billion in damage across the Southeast.
The Colorado State University forecasters said this season there is a 51% chance of a major hurricane striking the U.S., with a 26% chance of one of the storms making landfall along the East Coast and 33% chance along the Gulf Coast. They predict a 56% chance of a major hurricane tracking through the Caribbean.
The season arrives amid widespread uncertainty over the role the federal government will play in disaster response and recovery, as the Trump administration fires employees, freezes funding and dismantles agencies. NOAA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are among the targets.
“Uncertainty is not great,” said Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science. “It just adds another layer of stress. That isn’t great when people are trying to prepare for hurricane season.”
As much as 30 percent of the workforce at NOAA’s National Weather Service has been eliminated, said Rick Spinrad, a former NOAA administrator under the Biden administration. He worried NOAA may struggle to maintain its Hurricane Hunter flights, which he said account for a 15 percent improvement in track and intensity forecasting.
“If you lose that capacity to predict the track, you could either unnecessarily evacuate tens or hundreds of thousands of people, or evacuate the wrong people or not evacuate people who should be evacuated,” he said. “So we are putting lives and property in significant danger with the degradation of the forecast capability.”
No changes to the flights have been proposed, said Michael “Mac” McAlister, who has flown with the Hurricane Hunters for 10 years. This will be the 50th season for one of the two aircraft involved in the program, a WP-3D Orion named Kermit. The other plane is called Miss Piggy.
“There are hardly any 50-year-old pieces of this aircraft left,” McAlister said, referring to Kermit. “The wings get chopped off every five years. In my opinion these are two of the greatest national assets because of the data they provide.”
No one from the National Hurricane Center, a division of the National Weather Service, attended this year’s National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, said Craig Fugate, a former FEMA administrator under the Obama administration and former director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Normally the National Hurricane Center would brief state and local emergency managers at the conference on new forecasting methods, to help the managers improve communications with the public about, say, when evacuations are necessary. The training is important because there can be high turnover among emergency managers, he said.
“I’m just not aware of any other time that the hurricane center staff wasn’t at that conference,” Fugate said.
NOAA declined to comment on the conference but said Thursday its forecasts would be no less accurate. For instance, the federal agency said the model used to predict hurricanes would undergo an upgrade that would improve track and intensity forecasts by as much as 5 percent.
“We are fully staffed at the Hurricane Center, and we are definitely ready to go,” said Laura Grimm, acting NOAA administrator. “We are really making this a top priority for the administration.”
Kim Doster, the agency’s communications director, added in a statement, “in the near term, NWS has updated the service level standards for its weather forecast offices to manage impacts due to shifting personnel resources. These revised standards reflect the transformation and prioritization of mission-essential operations, while supporting the balance of the operational workload for its workforce. NWS continues to ensure a continuity of service for mission-critical functions.”
Meanwhile, FEMA is in turmoil, with President Donald Trump suggesting he might eliminate the federal agency. Cameron Hamilton, acting head of FEMA, was ousted earlier this month after testifying before a congressional subcommittee that elimination would not be “in the best interest of the American people.” His dismissal coincided with National Hurricane Preparedness Week, declared by Trump in a proclamation in which the president said he remained “steadfastly committed to supporting hurricane recovery efforts and ensuring that Federal resources and tax dollars are allocated to American citizens in need.”
But during Trump’s first week in office he appointed a task force to review FEMA’s ability to respond to disasters. And in March he signed an executive order asserting that federal policy must “recognize that preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the State, local, and even individual levels.” The order called on state and local governments and individuals to “play a more active and significant role in national resilience and preparedness.”
In April the administration denied a request for assistance from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, after tornadoes ripped through several counties there. The administration approved the request in May.
Nonetheless, FEMA told Inside Climate News in a statement, before Hamilton was fired, that its response to disasters would not be diminished.
“Unlike the previous administration’s unprepared, disgraceful and inadequate response to natural disasters like Hurricane Helene, the Trump administration is committed to ensuring Americans affected by emergencies will get the help they need in a quick and efficient manner,” the statement reads. “All operational and readiness requirements will continue to be managed without interruption in close coordination with local and state officials ahead of the 2025 Hurricane Season. Emergency management is best when led by local and state authorities.”
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis welcomed the prospect of more state leadership in disaster response. During an April event in Kissimmee he said he believed the Trump administration would send block-grant funding to states, which could manage the calamities more efficiently.
“We’re not going to be left in the cold. But I can tell you that the FEMA bureaucracy is an impediment to disaster recovery,” said DeSantis, who ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican primary. “We’re nimble. We’re quick. We adjust. So empower the states. Give us the resources, and we don’t necessarily need the federal government to be involved at all.”
But state and local governments already lead the response to disasters, Fugate notes. Governors request federal help only when the scope of the crisis exceeds the state’s capabilities, with the federal government providing little more than funding.
He said it was too soon to guess how all of the developments may affect hurricane season.
Even more cuts could be coming
Trump’s budget request, released earlier this month, would slash more than $1.3 billion from NOAA and $646 million from FEMA. Congress must approve the proposal.
An earlier leaked draft, obtained by Inside Climate News, would abolish NOAA’s research office, called Oceanic and Atmospheric Research or NOAA Research. The office is charged with providing unbiased science to, among other things, improve forecasts and enhance warnings ahead of disasters. The draft included $171 million for the office, down from $485 million in 2024. The few programs that remain, including research into severe storms, would be moved primarily to the National Weather Service and National Ocean Service.
The Trump administration’s 2026 budget passback, as the draft was called, included “significant reductions to education, grants, research, and climate-related programs within NOAA,” according to the document. “Passback levels support a leaner NOAA that focuses on core operational needs, eliminates unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, terminates nonessential grant programs and ends activities that do not warrant a Federal role.”
Project 2025, the conservative strategy for remaking the federal government, calls for NOAA to be taken apart, with many functions eliminated, privatized or moved to other agencies or state and local governments. The document suggests reforming FEMA to shift much of its spending on preparedness and response to state and local governments.
“We’re just providing as accurate information as we can,” said Andy Hazelton, a National Weather Service scientist who was let go earlier this year. “Hopefully we can get back to that, but it’s been a very, very tough environment for the last few months.”
In central Florida, all of the uncertainty has left Alan Harris, the emergency manager in Seminole County, grappling with how to prepare for hurricane season. Seminole is a suburban county north of Orlando that is spliced through by the St. Johns River, Florida’s longest. The county has experienced flooding during several recent hurricanes, including Ian in 2022 and Milton in 2024.
The agency depends on forecasts from the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center and assistance from FEMA after a storm has passed. It had applied for a grant for a new generator for a special needs shelter under the federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which Trump signed into law in 2020. But the Trump administration ended the program recently.
“We at the local level are going to make sure that our residents are taken care of regardless of what happens at the federal or state level,” Harris said. “We will need help. We just don’t know where that help is going to come from. But I have 100 percent confidence that there will be help whether it’s through mutual aid agreements or it’s from other states or our own state. We’re going to make sure our residents are taken care of.”
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
SUPPORT
Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article presents a detailed report on NOAA’s hurricane season forecast while highlighting concerns about federal funding cuts and staffing reductions under the Trump administration. The tone is largely factual and informative, but it includes critical context about budget slashes, agency dismantling plans, and personnel losses attributed to conservative policies. It contrasts the Trump administration’s approach with statements from former officials aligned with Democratic administrations, emphasizing risks to disaster preparedness and forecasting capabilities. The framing and emphasis on potential negative impacts of conservative governance suggest a center-left bias, focusing on environmental and public safety implications tied to political decisions.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Nolan McKendry | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-05-27 14:48:00
The Louisiana Legislature passed House Bill 148, granting the insurance commissioner broader power to regulate rates, including declaring rates “excessive” regardless of market conditions. It removes the distinction between competitive and noncompetitive markets and expands the definition of excessive rates to include high administrative costs. Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple and the Insurance Council of Louisiana oppose the bill, warning it grants subjective authority that could destabilize the market, reduce insurer participation, and limit consumer choices. The bill also mandates insurers disclose prior premiums at renewal to improve transparency. Critics argue it could undermine ongoing reform efforts and worsen the insurance crisis in Louisiana.
(The Center Square) – The Louisiana Legislature has passed a bill that would give the state insurance commissioner broader authority to regulate insurance rates − including the power to declare rates “excessive” regardless of market conditions.
The bill now heads to the governor’s desk.
House Bill 148, authored by Rep. Jeff Wiley, R-Maurepas, eliminates the legal distinction between “competitive” and “noncompetitive” insurance markets, a framework that previously limited when the commissioner could intervene.
By law, rates can only be declared excessive in noncompetitive markets. The bill repeals that restriction and applies a uniform standard.
The bill also updates the definition of “excessive” rates to include cases where administrative or overhead costs are too high for the services provided.
This provision was introduced through an amendment and had been proposed in several failed bills earlier in the session. Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple opposed those earlier efforts and has continued to voice concern.
In a letter to lawmakers, Temple warned that the bill would grant the commissioner “unfettered power to deny any rate based on only the subjective belief that it is too high,” without adequate guardrails. He said that the changes could destabilize the already fragile insurance market by discouraging insurers from doing business in Louisiana.
“Insurers rely on a predictable regulatory framework to make informed business decisions,” Temple wrote. “Allowing – and frankly encouraging – subjective disapprovals could lead to inconsistent regulatory actions … ultimately harming consumers by limiting their choices and driving up premiums.”
The Insurance Council of Louisiana echoed Temple’s concerns, warning that HB148 would make Louisiana an “outlier” in several areas of insurance regulation. The group pointed to provisions that allow the commissioner to retroactively declare previously approved rates excessive and potentially require insurers to issue refunds − without a defined time limit.
It also criticized a new disclosure requirement that would compel insurers to release confidential rate filings before an appeal can be resolved.
“These issues … make Louisiana’s insurance rate and confidentiality laws different than almost every other state,” the group wrote. “The likelihood is that it will cause bad outcomes.”
Temple also criticized the way the measure advanced. After the House of Representatives rejected a similar proposal by Rep. Robby Carter, D-Amite, the language was revived and inserted into Wiley’s bill via an amendment by Rep. Brian Glorioso, R-Slidell.
“As it relates to the changes that are being made, it simply gives the commissioner the ability to make that determination,” Glorioso said while presenting the amendment. “It does not require him to do anything. There are factors that he is to consider … we’re just adding real language – another factor that may be considered.”
In addition to reshaping rate regulation, the bill requires insurance companies to disclose a policyholder’s previous premium amount when renewing homeowners or private passenger motor vehicle policies. Insurers must prominently display the prior premium alongside the new one, a move supporters say will improve transparency for consumers.
The legislation follows mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers like Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-Orleans, who have called for greater accountability from insurers rather than continuing the legislature’s focus on tort reform.
Temple, however, contends that the real driver of high auto rates is an “excessive” number of bodily injury claims – and that the Legislature’s focus should remain on reforms to reduce claim costs.
“HB148 and SB247 will reverse the positive trends we are seeing and could stifle any progress this session might otherwise achieve,” Temple said, referencing a separate Senate bill carrying similar provisions. “This is not the path for Louisiana. We cannot overregulate our way out of this crisis.”
The Insurance Council also warned that HB148 could undercut other pending reform bills – such as those addressing Louisiana’s comparative negligence rules and litigation costs – by introducing instability into the regulatory environment.
“While this bill may come out of good intentions,” said ICL Executive Director Rodney Braxton, “the likelihood is that it will cause bad outcomes.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The article presents a factual account of House Bill 148 and its implications on insurance regulation in Louisiana, reporting on the perspectives of various stakeholders without endorsing a particular side. It includes statements from the bill’s author, Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple, the Insurance Council of Louisiana, and Democratic lawmakers, highlighting both support for increased regulatory authority aimed at consumer protection and concerns about potential negative impacts on the insurance market. The language remains neutral and descriptive, focusing on policies, differing opinions, and potential effects rather than employing emotive or partisan rhetoric. This balanced presentation indicates that the content is primarily informative and neutral, reporting on ideological positions without conveying an intrinsic political bias.
SUMMARY: The search continues for Derrick Groves, one of five inmates still at large after a breakout from Orleans Parish Jail ten days ago. Groves, a convicted killer, remains missing, and his family, including his aunt Jasmine Groves, is pleading for him to turn himself in, hoping he will be brought into custody alive. The family has endured ongoing police presence around their homes and law enforcement questioning of Groves’s mother. Groves’s grandmother was killed by an NOPD officer in 1994, adding to decades of trauma. Authorities urge anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.
As we get into yet another week, we are hearing from one of the families of the escapees for the first time on camera. Jasmine Groves, the aunt of Derrick Groves, said she wants her nephew to turn himself in, but she hopes he will be taken into custody alive. She is hoping that deadly force is not used by law enforcement.
SUMMARY: Memorial Day, observed on the last Monday of May, honors US military personnel who died serving the country. Originating after the Civil War as Decoration Day, it began with communities decorating soldiers’ graves. Veterans emphasize that the day is more than the unofficial start of summer; it’s a solemn reminder of the ultimate sacrifice made for the nation’s freedom. While many spend time with family, veterans urge Americans to pause and appreciate the freedoms secured by those sacrifices. Memorial Day is a time to remember, give thanks, and ensure fallen heroes are never forgotten.
Honoring the Fallen: The true meaning of Memorial Day
