As droughts and wildfires wreak havoc across Florida, Ron DeSantis, the state's governor, urged residents to look at a potential bright side: a less-destructive hurricane season.
However, experts were quick to point out that there is no scientific basis for DeSantis's suggestion that droughts are associated with milder hurricane seasons.
"They do say that when you have droughts, that the hurricane seasons tend to be less active," DeSantis claimed at an event, according to NPR station WLRN.
DeSantis himself was quick to equivocate, though, adding at the time, "I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's an old wives' tale."
He didn't stop there.
"I don't know if there's data to back it up," DeSantis continued. "But people do say that, and so I guess we shall see what that means for this season coming up."
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Weather experts later debunked the governor's claim.
"There actually isn't any basis for that," said Andy Hazleton of the University of Miami Cooperative Institute for Marine & Atmospheric Studies, per WLRN. "Sometimes, drought can be associated with La Niña winters, which we just had, and La Niña tends to favor more hurricanes."
The situation highlighted growing concern around changing weather patterns. These changes have made extreme weather events more severe, disrupted local ecosystems, and threatened food production.
For example, in 2025, a confluence of weather-related events significantly reduced blueberry harvests worldwide.
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Similarly, changing weather patterns have hindered the production of such global staples as wheat, coffee, and vanilla.
Florida, in particular, has faced a variety of challenges related to the changing climate, from more intense hurricanes to wildfires to rising sea levels.
Given that context, one might understand why the state's governor would want to give his constituents a reason for optimism. Unfortunately, according to experts, DeSantis's claim that droughts lead to calmer hurricane seasons is not supported by the data.
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