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by WILL FOLKS
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Doom and gloom pronouncements of a tropical apocalypse failed to materialize in 2025 as forecasters dramatically overstated the projected impacts of the recently concluded hurricane season.
Gotta love agenda-based meteorology, right?
It’s almost as if predicting storms has become incidental to climate indoctrination… which has made “talking about the weather” a more contentious conversation zone than ever before.
Each year, the Atlantic tropical season runs from June 1 through November 30, typically yielding thirteen named storms (including roughly seven which become hurricanes and three which become major hurricanes). Last year was one of the costliest seasons on record as Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton both did catastrophic damage to the American mainland.
Thanks to Helene and Milton, the total damage tab last year hit $129.7 billion – making 2024 the third-costliest season on record.
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This year, there were a total of 13 named storms – barely attaining the lower end of the major forecasts – although only five of these systems became hurricanes. Of those, four turned into major hurricanes including record-setting Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in Jamaica packing winds of 185 miles per hour. Melissa tied 2019’s Hurricane Dorian as the strongest system ever to come ashore in the Atlantic basin. Melissa’s central pressure at landfall was just 892 millibars – which tied her with the 1936 Labor Day hurricane for the lowest central pressure ever recorded in a landfalling storm.
While Melissa’s fury left storm watchers in awe, she steered well clear of the American mainland – as did every other system save Tropical Storm Chantal, which came ashore near the North Carolina-South Carolina border on July 5, 2005.
No hurricanes made landfall anywhere in the United States in 2025, the first time since 2015 that the American mainland avoid a direct impact. Damage associated with 2025’s storms clocked in at $10.55 billion – with most of that total attributable to Melissa.
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Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) touted their “advanced models and warning systems” in issuing dire 2025 projections, referring to their outlook as “a call to action.” Meanwhile, Accuweather estimated as many as 3-6 tropical systems would have “direct U.S. impacts,” claiming warmer water temperatures would “prime storms for explosive development.”
Several storms did experience rapid intensification – especially Melissa – but by and large, the “experts” swung and missed on their 2025 predications.
To be clear: no one is saying environmental concerns shouldn’t be taken seriously (and mitigated wherever practicable), nor is anyone minimizing the dangers posed by tropical systems or downplaying the need to prepare for them. These are deadly, disruptive storms – and their impacts often extend into the very heart of our nation (as the people of Western North Carolina can attest).
But it’s incumbent upon those in meteorology – and media – to discuss these storms as they are, not as those with ideological-based predispositions might want them to be. In other words, it’s our job to report on the data – not some agenda. To that end, FITSNews has consistently cited water temperature data – and noted the interplay of El Niño and La Niña – in our tropical coverage, digging deeper than any other South Carolina-based media outlet on the prevailing conditions which fuel and form these storms.
But there’s a big difference between referencing data and needlessly stoking fear. Also, the more frequently forecasters don sackcloth and ashes and beat their breasts – only to see their calamitous clarion calls fail to come to fruition – the less seriously the public will take their pronouncements moving forward.
Which is where the real danger lies…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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3 comments
Hey Will, any update on those hundreds of unreported deaths you repeatedly claimed happened after Helene?
RC– According to NOAA, hurricane Helene was responsible “for at least 250 deaths” in the Southeast U.S. That can be interpreted as meaning there were unreported deaths above that number. How many? Nobody is saying officially.
Fits gave credence to people making claims of seeing hundreds of body bags and the like, and that officials were hiding the true death total. This is not just a suggestion that maybe there were more unreported deaths. It was just promoting conspiracy theories. They never owned up to it, and it’s laughable that Will has the audacity to criticize NOAA.