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•🌪️ Colorado State and AccuWeather forecast an above-average 2025 hurricane season with multiple major storms expected.
•📱 Emergency managers in Walton and Okaloosa counties are relying on tools like IPAWS and tourism partnerships to warn the public quickly.
•🧳 Officials urge residents and visitors to prepare plans now, especially for those needing special accommodations.
The weather nerds at Colorado State University’s Hurricane Forecasting Center have made their official predictions for the 2025 hurricane season public.
Long story short – they and plenty of other storm-predicting scientists expect a busier-than-average hurricane season this year.
Colorado State predicts 17 named storms, nine hurricanes, and four major hurricanes for the year. AccuWeather, a private company, expects between 13-18 storms, 7-10 hurricanes and 3-5 major hurricanes.
In the past, data show the most likely time for the Emerald Coast to be hit takes place a little bit later in the season – in the September and October timeframe – but storms can strike at any time in the season – and sometimes a little bit early (2019) or late (2016).
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But the predictions are moot for Walton County Emergency Manager Jeff Goldberg. “My philosophy on predictions is, I don’t pay attention to them because predictions are just that,” Goldberg said over the phone, “predictions do not dictate my preparedness posture. We prepare the same; whether we are having one hurricane or predicting to have one or 100 hurricanes, the preparedness is not going to change. The only thing that changes is my operational tempo when something forms.”
While he leads the emergency management team for the smallest (by population) coastal county in the Western Panhandle – he has a unique challenge that increases risk factors dramatically – tourists.
New technologies that have become available to his team, and emergency management teams all over the country, over the last couple of years have helped to ease the burden of threat notification – including IPAWS, or the Integrated Public Alert Warning System. The system, created and maintained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, allows emergency managers to send out alert messages to cell phones, over the radio, television and digital signage.
He adds that his partnership with lodging and tourism companies also helps tremendously.
In Okaloosa County, Public Safety Director Patrick Maddox has similar functions and capabilities when a storm threatens the Emerald Coast.
“It only takes one hurricane to make your hurricane season an active one,” Maddox said. He noted that, for the residents of Florida’s Forgotten Coast and the center of the State – which were wracked by three storms – it was a much more active season than it was for the Western Panhandle, which didn’t see storm activity.
To that end, the Emergency Management Division of Okaloosa County’s Public Safety Department added an Emergency Management Planner to their staff. Their job is to ensure that the county uses “blue skies” or calmer times to prepare for hurricanes or other natural disasters.
“According to us, until we prove otherwise, it’s always going to be an active year,” Maddox said.
Both men say the best thing you can do is prepare now and practice your plan – especially if you have someone with special needs or requires additional accommodations to get to safety.
Terri Jenkins with the Red Cross of North Florida says now is the time to prepare your own family – and to train up as a volunteer to help others during an emergency.
The Red Cross of our area has about 200 volunteers on their list, but Jenkins says that is some distance short of the number of volunteers they need to be able to respond to a crisis while also managing their day to day issues – like responding to house fires.
To that end, the Red Cross continues to recruit people to help others in an emergency and provides free training to volunteers so they can respond to a crisis in our area. You can learn more about helping here.
Jenkins says another critical part of preperation, other than recruiting volunteers is the provision of information to locals about preparing for a storm (or other disaster) ahead of the event.
People can connect to the Red Crosses resources through their app (iPhone) (Android), by texting GETEMERGENCY to 90999, or by going to this link on their website.
