Climate and data

US hurricane season begins, but Doge's cuts make their prediction less certain

Fema and Noaa have been hit by Elon Musk's department's cutbacks, which will make the data on hurricane intensity and affected areas less accurate. According to Noaa studies, between 13 and 19 Atlantic storms are expected from June to November

by Annalisa Godi

4 June 2025

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3' min read

Key points

Doge's cuts to agencies that protect Americans from hurricanes
Noaa's forecast for the hurricane season
Countdown of damage

3' min read

'I am not aware of a hurricane season in the United States'. Thephrase uttered by the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), David Richardson, leaves one dismayed by the position he holds. The Department of Homeland Security, of which Fema is a part, said it was a joke. In any case, the doubt remains. In the statement, Homeland Security also added that Fema will be engaged in responding to emergencies that will be caused by the hurricane season and that the Trump administration will reform an agency that it deems to be bureaucratic.

Doge's cuts to agencies that protect Americans from hurricanes

Fema plays the same role as the Civil Protection in Italy and will play a leading role in the hurricane season, which runs from 1 June to 30 November. Doge, the governmental efficiency department headed until 29 May by Elon Musk, has inflicted cuts on the funds and personnel of government agencies that play a leading role in monitoring hurricanes and managing hurricane emergencies.

According to a former agency official, Fema has lost about a quarter of its full-time officers since the start of the Trump presidency, and has also cut the coordinating officers who respond to large-scale disasters by 20 per cent. 'In just three months,' comments Michael Lowry, a hurricane expert and formerly a scientist at the National Hurricane Center, in the New York Times, 'the Doge has inflicted on the National Weather Service, which operates 122 local forecast offices across the country, the equivalent of more than a decade of lost manpower.

While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa, responsible for predicting climate, weather, coastal and oceanic changes) lost a fifth of its staff, including hundreds of employees of the US National Weather Service.

"The National Weather Service," Lowry argued, "costs the average American four dollars a year if we take today's inflation into account, the same as a gallon of milk. It offers a return investment of 8000%, projected to 2024. It is a travesty for the administration to pretend that dismantling an agency that protects our coasts from a rising tide of disasters is in the interest of our economy or national security. If the private sector could have done it better and cheaper, they would have done it, but they didn't."

Noaa's forecast for the hurricane season

According to a study by Noaa, between 13 and 19 'named storms', which are given names because they are intense and potentially damaging, will hit the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico this year. Of these, between 6 and 10 will be hurricanes and between 3 and 5 major hurricanes. But experts warn that data on the intensity of hurricanes and the areas they will hit cannot be complete, as weather balloon launches have dropped by 15-20%.

In the pre-Trump era, weather balloon launches occurred twice a day at more than 100 different locations in the North Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific. Also in the crosshairs was one of the research facilities of Noaa, the Bureau of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which funds hurricane chasers. On 30 May, the White House released a new budget document in which it proposed cutting funding for this office.

Damage countdown

On 8 May, Noaa announced that it would suspend tracking the cost of damage caused by natural disasters. In the statement it said it was a response to 'changing priorities, statutory mandates and personnel changes'. The move will leave a gap in understanding what damage climate change is doing and whether these extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more impactful.

Since the government agency began tracking the costs of environmental disasters (exceeding $1 billion) in 1980, it has counted 403. In 2024, there were 27 extreme weather events, second only to 2023, when 28 were recorded. Last year, $113 billion in damage was counted due to hurricanes Helene and Milton, which also caused 250 deaths. While a severe hailstorm in Colorado and a year-long drought across the country caused three and five billion dollars of damage respectively. The damage caused by the California wildfires of early 2025 and subsequent extreme weather events will not be tracked and reported to the public. Noaa has not said whether other government agencies will take its place in recording the damage, but it will make archived data from 1980 to 2024 available to the public.