Forecasters Tracking Tropical Development In The Caribbean Ahead Of Hurricane Season

FLORIDA — The first tropical storm of the year could form before the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season begins, forecasters warn.

Weeks before the official June 1 start of the season, meteorologists are tracking a low risk area with potential for preseason tropical development in the Caribbean, AccuWeather said.

There’s a large, slow-spinning area in the atmosphere, called a gyre, that could develop somewhere around Central America — overlapping with part of the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean — between May 15 and 22, AccuWeather experts said. Gyres sometimes set the stage for a tropical depression or storm to form.

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"We're starting to get into that time of year where we need to keep an eye on the Caribbean," Alex DaSilva, AccuWeather’s lead hurricane expert, said. "At the very least, a wetter pattern down across Central America and then up into the Western Caribbean is expected.”

Tropical downpours could cause localized flooding across Central America, Jamaica, Cuba, and other islands across the western Caribbean with some of the heavy rains possibly reaching south Florida, meteorologists said.

If a tropical depression or storm does spawn in the Caribbean out of the gyre, it will likely track northeast, they added.

"Given the pattern, I think the most likely scenario is it would cross over Jamaica, Cuba, and then head out to sea," DaSilva said. "Right now, while we cannot rule it out, it does not look like a track … toward the U.S. is most likely. Any risk would not be until at least May 20 and likely not until May 22."

While the Atlantic hurricane season runs from the start of June through Nov. 30, sometimes tropical storms develop early in the month of May.

Forecasters are predicting an active hurricane season fueled by warm sea surface temperatures in the Gulf, a warm Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation and abundant mid-level moisture because of reduced Saharan dust and active African easterly waves, according to the Climate Adaptation Center.

CAC experts are predicting 17 named storms, 10 hurricanes and five major hurricanes this year.

AccuWeather forecasters said there could be 13 to 18 named storms. Of these storms, seven to 10 are expected to become hurricanes and three to five are predicted to strengthen into major hurricanes that are Category 3 or higher, forecasters said.

Meanwhile, Colorado State University meteorologists are predicting 12 named storms and five hurricanes.