The 2025 hurricane season is over. It was worse than you might think.

Source: USA Today

Nov. 30, 2025, 6:02 a.m. ET


The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season that ends Nov. 30 was one for the record books, but maybe not in the way anyone expected when it began June 1.

For the first time in a decade, no hurricane made landfall in the United States, a welcome respite to beleaguered communities across the Southeast still recovering from earlier hurricanes. But that didn't mean it was a quiet season overall. The season with "striking contrasts" ultimately is ending pretty much within the ranges predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, except fewer hurricanes overall than seasonal outlooks suggested.

Hurricane scientist Brian McNoldy summed it up as "a slightly above-average season with some strange characteristics."

The number of Category 5 storms was one of the most striking of those characteristics. Usually, only a small fraction of hurricanes ever become a Category 5 storm. This year, 23% of the named storms reached that status, with winds of 157 mph or more, often rapidly intensifying in warm ocean waters.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/11/30/2025-atlantic-hurricane-season-ends/87455531007/