TSR slightly reduces its 2025 Atlantic hurricane forecast, now back to expecting 2 landfalls

Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) has updated its forecast for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season today, lowering the forecast for storm, hurricane and major hurricane numbers, while also dropping the forecast for US hurricane landfalls back to 2.

In its first pre-season outlook in December 2024, Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) forecast there could be 15 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes in the 2025 hurricane season, numbers that are roughly aligned with the 30-year norm.

Then, in an April 2025 forecast, TSR called for 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes to form in the Atlantic basin over the 2025 season, while also saying here could be 2 hurricane landfalls in the United States this year.

Those numbers rose in the TSR late May 2025 forecast for the Atlantic hurricane season, when it called for 16 tropical storms, 8 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes, with an Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index of 146 for the 2025 Atlantic season and also saying that the United States could experience 3 landfalling hurricanes and 5 landfalling tropical storms this year.

Now, the latest seasonal forecast update from Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) sees the researchers and meteorologists calling for 15 named tropical storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes, so the figures are now back to whether they stood last December and again aligned with the 30-year norm.

In addition, TSR’s new forecast updates calls for an Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index of 126 for the 2025 Atlantic season, so much lower than it predicted in its May update.

On top of which, TSR is now forecasting 2 landfalling US hurricanes and 4 landfalling US tropical storms, so again a reduction on all counts.

TSR explained, “The factors influencing the TSR July forecast for 2025 North Atlantic hurricane activity to be close to the 1991-2020 climatology are for tropical North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea waters to be near or above normal by August-September 2025, and for surface pressure and precipitation anomalies across much of the basin to be neutral or unfavourable for tropical cyclone activity. It should be noted that uncertainties remain and the forecast skill is moderate at this lead time.”

After including this latest TSR forecast to the other hurricane season forecasts we’ve tracked so far, the average across them still calls for 16 named storms, 8 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes, but the average across ACE forecasts has reduced slightly.

That average remains slightly above the 1991 to 2020 average, while the numbers for hurricanes and major hurricanes is in the same region as the recent decadal average figures.

As ever, when discussing seasonal hurricane forecasts, it’s important for us to note that the number of storms that form, or that become hurricanes or major hurricanes, is not what really matters to interests in the catastrophe bond, insurance-linked securities (ILS), or reinsurance markets.

Higher storm numbers can mean more chance of impacts, but it is the direction storms travel in, their proximity to land and, of course, actual landfalls that really matter. Even then, landfalls matter most in regions of high property density, urbanisation and so areas with high exposure or value concentration at-risk, both for this industry and for the communities that might be affected by this year’s hurricane season.

Also today, TSR maintained its forecast for the northwest Pacific typhoon season in 2025, continuing to say it expects below average activity. This forecast calls for 25 tropical storms, 15 typhoons, 8 intense typhoons and an Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index of 250 for the northwest Pacific basin.

Track the 2025 Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season on our dedicated page and we’ll update you as new information emerges.