Featured Post from Louisiana State University

LSU Hurricane Expert Dr. Jill Trepanier Featured in TIME Magazine

Trepanier’s insights highlight LSU’s leadership in hurricane and climate research—providing vital context to understand weather trends that impact communities across Louisiana and beyond.

Oct 17, 2025

1 min

Jill C. Trepanier


For the first time in a decade, no hurricanes have made landfall in the United States through the end of September—a rare and welcome reprieve for coastal communities. But according to LSU hurricane climatologist Dr. Jill Trepanier, the season has been far from quiet.


In a recent TIME Magazine feature, Trepanier explains that while no major storms have struck land, powerful systems have still formed over the Atlantic. “There are storms,” she says. “They’re just not making landfall.”


Trepanier points to several atmospheric factors behind this pattern, including dry air moving in from the Sahara and a persistent high-pressure system over the Gulf of Mexico that has made conditions unfavorable for hurricane development near the U.S. coast.


Another key influence, she notes, is a pressure pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation, which helps steer storm paths. “When that oscillation pattern shifts closer to Bermuda, it unfortunately drives them directly into the Gulf Coast and the eastern seaboard,” Trepanier says. “It changes over the course of a handful of years, and then back again. It’s this controlling mechanism that has shifted, thankfully, in the favor of those of us at the coast.”


Read the full article here:



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Jill C. Trepanier

Jill C. Trepanier

Professor and Department Chair

Dr. Trepanier is a hurricane climatologist and geographer focusing on the statistical estimation of extreme weather risk.

ClimatologyHurricanesGeographyEnvironmental Science

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