Florida’s Experts Make Their Hurricane Predictions For 2024

In Brief:

Florida State University experts forecast an active 2024 hurricane season with 23 named storms and five major hurricanes, influenced by La Niña conditions and record-high sea temperatures.
The state’s property insurance market faces challenges, with high premiums and reduced availability, despite recent legislative efforts to address the issue.
Environmental specialist Professor Erin Ryan suggests long-term strategies may include reconsidering where to build or rebuild in storm-prone Gulf South regions due to escalating storm frequency and costs.

You should prepare for an incredibly active hurricane season in 2024, professors of several disciplines at Florida State University announced at their annual Hurricane Season Expert Briefing.

Researchers from the university cited the modelling from Colorado State University’s Tropical Weather and Climate Research unit.

While the average number of named storms between 1991 and 2020 was 14.4, – data Florida State Professors reference says to prepare for 23. They expect five major storms to appear this season – 1.8 more than the historical average. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also released their predictions and said they believe we will see a significantly more active than normal season this year as well.

Professor David Ziordon, Florida’s State Climatologist, explained that the Pacific Ocean moved into a La Niña phase – which typically leads to a more active hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean because of higher ocean temperatures. “temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean, and it’s specifically the main development region from the coast of

Africa to through the Caribbean are running at record levels right now as

far as the sea surface temperatures and warrant so these two conditions combined uh we’re looking at a very active season this year,” Ziordon said.

For context, the record for most named storms in a single season was 30, which was set in 2020. 2005 saw the most hurricanes in a single year, with 15.

Property Insurance

Governor Ron Desantis forced the state legislature into a special session in 2023 and charged them with fixing the state’s insurance issues – many companies left the state in recent years, as insurance Florida properties became too risky for them.

This left fewer insurers who charged higher rates, which meant some people could no longer afford their premiums. Professor Patty Born with Florida State says that the steps the governor and state legislature took to fix the problem have set some wheels in the market in motion. “But it’s still going to be a little bit of time before we see the improvement to insurance companies’ bottom line going through to a reduction in premiums,” Born said. She added that litigation costs remain a significant disincentive for more insurance companies entering or re-entering the Florida market.

Ultimately, the insurance market will level off in the near term, but we won’t see premium price drops. “I do see some light at the end of the tunnel because there is a lot of activity,” Born said. There are a lot of people trying to figure out how to save the Florida insurance market.”

Leaving the Gulf South

Professor Erin Ryan, a member of the Law School Faculty at Florida State who specializes in environmental programs, noted that, eventually, humans will need to leave the Gulf South altogether due to the frequency and intensity of storms and their associated costs on property and peoples’ bottom lines. Costs benefit analysis of rebuilding will eventually bear that theory out – she hypothesizes: “Nobody who lives in Florida or Louisiana wants to hear anything about having to move their home or their family,” Ryan said, “but over time one of the land use responses land us planning responses to this kind of problem is to think really careful about carefully about where to build and rebuild how to fund what incentives to create um so while that doesn’t help people who are in the path of the storms we expect this summer it is something that policy makers and probably insurance providers will also be thinking about as time move forward time moves forward and we continue to deal with storms of these magnitudes that may be difficult to escape.”