It’s hard to believe but the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season is just about six weeks away.

The official first day of the season is June 1, and it could be another active summer and fall.

NOAA won’t release its hurricane season outlook until the end of May, but one long-running forecast is already out.

Colorado State University released its 2025 Atlantic hurricane outlook earlier this month. The university has been releasing hurricane forecasts for 42 years now.

The CSU researchers think it could be another year with an above-average number of storms.

The CSU forecast said the 2025 season could have:

• 17 named storms
• 9 hurricanes
• 4 major hurricanes (Category 3 or stronger)

An average hurricane season, according to NOAA, has 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. That average is based on data from 1991-2020.

The CSU forecast also includes probabilities of hurricanes making landfall.

According to the report there will be a 33 percent probability of a hurricane landfall on the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Texas. The average probability of that happening is 27 percent, according to the report.

The CSU researchers are basing their 2025 forecast for an above-average season in part on continued warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in parts of the Atlantic Ocean.

More uncertain is what will happen with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (or ENSO) over the course of the season, which runs until Nov. 30.

ENSO is driven by ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific, the CSU researchers said. Those ocean temperatures can influence weather patterns worldwide.

El Niño occurs when above-average temperatures persist in that region. La Niña is the opposite, with cooler-than-average ocean temperatures. Neutral conditions indicate neither El Niño or La Niña.

La Niña was in control during the 2024 season. La Niña can make conditions more favorable for hurricanes in the Atlantic. El Niño is the opposite and can create less-favorable atmospheric conditions in the tropics.

The CSU team thinks that the current La Niña conditions will shift to neutral over the next few months, but the report also noted “considerable uncertainty” about which phase ENSO will be in this summer and into the fall.

The CSU team will issue updates to this forecast on June 11, July 9 and Aug. 6.

What will this year’s storm names be? The 2025 name list is one that is recycled every six years, so the 2025 storm names were last used in 2019.

One name will be missing from the 2025 list: Dorian. That Category 5 hurricane devastated the Bahamas in 2019, and the name was later retired by the World Meteorological Organization.

Dorian has been replaced with Dexter in this year’s list.

Here are the 2025 storm names for the Atlantic:

• Andrea
• Barry
• Chantal
• Dexter
• Erin
• Fernand
• Gabrielle
• Humberto
• Imelda
• Jerry
• Karen
• Lorenzo
• Melissa
• Nestor
• Olga
• Pablo
• Rebekah
• Sebastien
• Tanya
• Van
• Wendy

The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season will begin on June 1 and end on Nov. 30.