Yves here. If headlines are any guide, it seems the epic and sustained heat over the summer and in part of the US shook a lot of the general public out of its climate complacency. Nevertheless, some may be looking for silver linings where they can be found. One is that this year’s super El Nino is expected to reduce Atlantic hurricanes. Jeff Masters warns that this year’s break is not likely to continue.
By Jeff Masters, Ph.D., who worked as a hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters and later founded Weather Underground, where he served as its chief meteorologist. Originally published at Yale Climate Connections
The unprecedented is the new normal for the atmosphere. By pumping it full of massive amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, we’re pushing the climate to a new, higher-energy state where more heat and moisture are available to power stronger storms. As a result, the future is bound to hold some unpleasant surprises for the behavior of Atlantic hurricanes.
The stakes are extraordinarily high for coastal residents, property, governments, and our economy.
A 2025 study that has not yet undergone peer review, Stress testing insurance market stability under climate risk, found that there is about a 4% chance per year – or 34% chance over 10 years – that an extreme hurricane season in Florida could cause multi-billion-dollar losses to the government, not covered by insurance, that would exceed 1% of the state’s GDP.
Such an occurrence could well trigger a regional collapse of the coastal property market. Science writer Eugene Linden wrote in 2023, “as we saw in 2008, a housing crisis can quickly morph into a systemic financial crisis because banks own most of the value, and thus the risk, in housing and commercial real estate.”
If Atlantic hurricanes grow more destructive, the odds of catastrophe will rise. I present below some of the many ways that climate change could significantly worsen hurricane impacts.
1) The current La Niña-like climate continues and intensifies
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a naturally occurring weather pattern that has a big influence on the intensity and tracks of Atlantic hurricanes. During El Niño, wind shear increases over the tropical Atlantic, discouraging hurricane activity. Over the past 50 years, more than twice as many U.S. landfalling hurricanes and major hurricanes have occurred during La Niña events as during El Niño.
About 80% of climate model forecasts show a more El Niño-like climate in the future, which would significantly reduce hurricane damage. Top global climate models have predicted for more than 20 years that the tropical Pacific would gradually shift toward a more “El Niño-like” state, but unfortunately, in real life, the opposite has been happening. Climate change may be responsible, so it’s possible the La Niña-like climate will stay in place or perhaps even intensify.
2) The increase in hurricane winds with warming ends up on the high side of projections
A 2020 review paper by 11 hurricane scientists, Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Assessment: Part II: Projected Response to Anthropogenic Warming, summarized dozens of studies on how Atlantic hurricanes would respond to 2 degrees Celsius of global warming. Among 52 studies, the median projected increase in lifetime maximum surface wind speeds was about 3%. But 5% of the studies predicted that winds could intensify by over 6%. A 3% increase in winds can be expected to cause a 30% increase in hurricane damage, but a 6% increase will double that, according to NOAA.
3) Tropical cyclone rainfall increase ends up on the high side of projections
The same paper cited above also summarized rainfall predictions from 44 models of future Atlantic tropical cyclones. The median change in rainfall rate was an increase of 17%, but about 5% of the studies predicted a rainfall increase of 22% or more.
4) The number of slower-moving, stalled, and slow-to-weaken storms increases
Several papers have shown an increase in slow-moving, stalled, and slow-to-weaken Atlantic tropical cyclones affecting land areas in recent decades. It is plausible (but not yet proven) that these trends are because of climate change. If this is the case, it is reasonable to assume this behavior will continue to grow more common, bringing a large increase in future flooding rainfall.
5) Sea level rise ends up on the high side of predictions
According to a 2022 report from NOAA, sea level is projected to rise 14-18 inches (0.36-0.46 meters) on the Gulf Coast, 10-14 inches (0.25-0.36 meters) on the U.S. East Coast, and eight to 10 inches (0.20-0.36 meters) in the Caribbean for the period 2020-2050. The forecast gives 50% odds that sea level rise along the contiguous U.S. coast by 2100 will exceed 0.7 meters (2.3 feet).
But if we fail to rein in their climate emissions and the climate turns out to be more sensitive than we thought, we can expect up to 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) of sea level rise by 2100 and 3.9 meters (12.8 feet) by 2150. Higher sea levels will greatly increase hurricane storm surge damage.
6) The Madden‐Julian Oscillation intensifies
The Madden‐Julian Oscillation, first discovered by Roland Madden and Paul Julian at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 1971, is a prominent tropical phenomenon characterized by a large‐scale envelope of cloud clusters and rain systems moving eastward along the equator. During favorable phases of the oscillation, hurricane activity is significantly more likely.
According to a 2020 review paper, Fifty Years of Research on the Madden‐Julian Oscillation: Recent Progress, Challenges, and Perspectives, “the MJO remains poorly represented in our state‐of‐the‐art climate and weather forecasting models, and theories for the MJO still disagree at a fundamental level.” Increases in atmospheric moisture from global warming could intensify the oscillation, while atmospheric circulation changes could weaken it and alter its frequency. A 2015 paper, The Madden-Julian Oscillation in a warmer world, predicted that under an extreme global warming scenario, the oscillation could increase in amplitude by 30%, which could provide a major boost to hurricane activity.
7) An increase in Central American Gyre activity spawns more hurricanes
The Central American Gyre — a type of monsoon low that develops across Central America and adjacent oceans — can spawn full-fledged tropical cyclones over the Atlantic or Eastern Pacific. In a future warmer climate, it’s likely that gyre events will produce more rainfall due to higher moisture availability in a warmer atmosphere. And if a warming planet shifts the Eastern Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone more toward the poles, that could increase the risk of gyre events over Central America by increasing moist southwesterly flow into the region, promoting elevated heavy thunderstorm activity over higher terrain.
However, the future of these phenomena is murky. A 2025 study, Response of Tropical Climate and Extreme Precipitation to Ocean Temperature in Convection‐Permitting Aquaplanet Simulations, said: “Climate projections disagree on key aspects of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), such as whether it will expand or contract, intensify or weaken, shift location, or remain in place.”
So for now, how the future incidence of Central American Gyre-spawned hurricanes might change is unknown.
8) More Hurricane Sandy-like hybrid superstorms occur
In the 14 years since the notorious Hurricane Sandy of 2012 devastated the Northeast U.S., there haven’t been any similar hybrid superstorms — a hurricane that merges with an extratropical storm, then gets slung to the northwest into the U.S. East Coast. However, there have been a few model runs that suggested that possibility for Hurricane Eta in 2020 and for Hurricane Melissa in 2025.
In theory, climate change might cause more such superstorms, because such hybrid storms are more likely to occur late in the season, when extratropical storms move farther south and increase in intensity. Since 1970, the Atlantic hurricane season has been getting longer: Compared to 1970-1994, the median Atlantic hurricane season from 1995-2022 was 48 days longer. This trend toward longer seasons correlates with warming tropical sea surface temperatures. Modeling work suggests that the length of hurricane season will continue to increase because of climate change. A 2024 paperpredicts that under an extreme global warming scenario, the end of hurricane season would be extended by 24 days by 2100 in some years, with many more storms forming in late October through early December.
9) Hurricanes get larger
A larger hurricane will cause more damage, so it is concerning that a 2015 paper, Increased threat of tropical cyclones and coastal flooding to New York City during the anthropogenic era, found a considerable jump in the size of the largest hurricanes compared to a pre-industrial climate. The increase in the odds of these super-sized hurricanes has led to a big jump in the storm surge risk to New York City, the scientists said. What once was a one-in-500-year storm surge flood is now a one-in-24-year flood.
But climate modeling for the future generally shows no increase in the size of hurricanes. For example, a 2023 paper, North Atlantic tropical cyclone outer size and structure remain unchanged by the late twenty-first century, concluded: “Our results show that projected North Atlantic tropical cyclone outer size and structure remain unchanged by the late twenty-first century within nearly all model simulations.”
10) Atmospheric circulation changes
In addition to atmospheric circulation patterns detailed above — ENSO, the Madden‐Julian Oscillation, and the African monsoon — other important circulation patterns that affect hurricanes, such as the Hadley cell and the North Atlantic Oscillation, will undoubtedly be changing in significant ways because of climate change. It is feasible that such changes could act to supercharge hurricane activity. For example, some models show that “stuck” jet stream configurations may increase in the future. If the jet gets stuck in place for many consecutive weeks, a relatively small portion of the coast could face repeated hurricane strikes, overwhelming disaster response efforts.
A concerning forecast from a top hurricane and climate change model
One of the highest-resolution global climate models developed for studying intense tropical cyclones, NOAA’s HiFLOR model, has produced some alarming forecasts.
A 2018 paper using HiFLOR predicted a highly concerning increase in the number of ultra-intense Category 5 tropical cyclones: from an average of about one every eight years to one per year between 2081 and 2100 – a factor of eight increase. Even more concerning is that the results of the study were for a middle-of-the-road global warming scenario, which will take a lot of work to achieve. The fact that we’ve seen nine of these megastorms over the past 25 years – compared to just two during the previous 25 years – is a troubling sign.
A more recent 2021 paper using HiFLOR looked at major hurricane activity under a moderate global warming scenario for 2081-2100. HiFLOR predicted a 103% increase in Cat 4s and a 540% increase in Cat5s. Fortunately, the model showed that these extra Cat 4s and Cat 5s would mostly stay out to sea. But a shift in steering currents could easily cause a dramatic increase in major hurricanes hitting North America.
Bottom line
My hunch: I give about a 90% chance that climate change will cause a net increase in Atlantic hurricane destruction over the coming 30 years compared to the past 30 years. And as long as we continue to develop vulnerable coastal areas, this increased destruction will bring about a significant increase in disaster response efforts being overwhelmed by future hurricane strikes.
