The severe storm system that has inundated the central and southeastern United States with heavy rain and high winds for days fits into a broader pattern in recent decades of increasing rainfall across the eastern half of the United States. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for 1991 through 2020 show that the Eastern part of the country received more rain, on average, over those years than it did during the 20th century. At the same time, precipitation decreased across the West. The sharp east-west divide is consistent with predictions from climate scientists, who expect wet places to get wetter, and dry areas to get drier, as the world warms. While no individual storm can be tied to climate change without further analysis, warming air can result in heavier rainfall. That’s because warm air has the ability to hold more moisture than cooler air, fueling conditions for more average precipitation overall, and the potential for storms that come through to be more intense. Global temperatures have been increasing year after year, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, which pumps planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The past 10 years have been the 10 hottest in nearly 200 years of record-keeping, according to a recent report from the World Meteorological Organization. “When we have these very heavy rain events, the trends have been pointing toward those heavy events getting heavier,” said Deanna Hence, an associate professor of climate meteorology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Severe floods can be an indirect effect of the warming air and increased moisture, said Jerald Brotzge, the state climatologist for Kentucky and director of the Kentucky Climate Center. When conditions cause a storm system to stall, it can drop large amounts of rain over the same area, increasing the risk of flooding. That’s what happened as this storm stalled in the region in recent days. “I would say it’s a once-in-a-generation event, based on the amounts and the area covered,” Dr. Brotzge said. Mark Jarvis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Louisville, Ky., described the storm as two-pronged. It brought tornadoes, high winds and hail at the front end, before stalling and dropping historic amounts of rainfall. Western Kentucky, which saw some of the storm’s most severe effects, was “in the bull's-eye of it,” he said. While heavy rains and floods are common in the Ohio Valley in late winter and early spring, for a system to drop as much rain as this one is “exceedingly rare,” he said. “That’s something that you usually see with hurricanes and tropical systems,” he said. While damaging storms have always happened, the possibility that climate change is amping them up is corroborated in the weather trends that have been observed, Dr. Hence said. She said that even in the Western half of the U.S., which has become drier overall, the precipitation that does come has had a tendency to fall at more extreme levels. She called it “very eye-popping,” and added, “To think that we’re in for more of this is not a particularly pleasant feeling to have.”

Hopkinsville, Ky., was first inundated by rain, a deluge that came with lightning that streaked the sky. Then, there was another invasion, as the water spilled over the banks of a nearby river, swamping homes and vehicles as well as the city’s downtown. On Sunday morning, the city of 31,000 hummed as pumps were fired up to draw out the water that had seeped into buildings. One of them belonged to Tony Kirves, who owns a photography studio. His building’s basement had flooded, and the water nearly reached entrances protected by sandbags. “It had all receded,” Mr. Kirves said. “Then last night, it came up again.” The past few days have been restless, he said, his concern rising and falling with the floodwaters. He was exhausted. It was a weariness that was shared across a vast swath of the country, from Texas to Ohio, that had been battered for days by a huge storm system. A reprieve from the rain was finally coming for much of that area, as the storm started to shift to the east. Yet even as the deluge subsided, other uncertainties began to emerge, particularly the perils posed by engorged rivers gushing over their banks. “Rivers have not yet crested, so we still have a day — if not more — of rising waters,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Sunday, renewing his warning yet again for residents to stay vigilant. At least 18 deaths have been attributed to the storm system since Wednesday, including those of a 5-year-old boy in Arkansas, a 9-year-old boy in Kentucky and a 16-year-old volunteer firefighter in Missouri. So far, the heaviest rains of the weekend have fallen in Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky, where rising water and flooding have prompted water rescues, road closures and evacuation orders. Some areas received more than 15 inches of rain over the past four days. Parts of the region could still receive up to five more inches of rain before the long stretch of bad weather finally clears, according to the National Weather Service. “Moderate to major” flooding was forecast on many of the region’s rivers. Frankfort, Ky., was one place still getting pummeled on Sunday. Officials said at least 15 people were rescued from water in the area on Sunday, and the National Guard has been deployed. Frankfort, the state’s capital, was also alarmed by National Weather Service projections that raised the expected crest of the Kentucky River, which had been bumped to 49.5 feet on Monday from earlier forecasts of 47 feet. The city’s flood wall is built to withstand 51 feet. “There is not much margin for error,” said Michael Mueller, the judge-executive for Franklin County, which includes Frankfort. If the crest surpasses 51 feet, he added, “that changes everything and it would turn into something horrific.” Sherry Hopper, 67, had to flee the campground near the city, where she had lived for about three years. “The water started coming up fast,” she said. Now, she was unsure about what was to come. She said she did not have the means to afford the expenses of evacuating or having to move her trailer. “This is a mess,” she said, “but there’s not much you can do.” Some rivers in areas like northern Arkansas and southern Missouri crested on Sunday. Others may continue rising for two or even three more days, but there will be less chance of dangerous flooding than there was on Friday and Saturday, forecasters say. For many, another unknown is the extent of the physical damage. A knee-level line marked the walls of Lawrence Schuetta and Jennifer Thompson’s home in Hopkinsville. The floodwaters had receded, leaving them with soaked furniture and damaged walls and floors. The jolt from quickly evacuating, grabbing clothes and medicine at the urging of firefighters, had been replaced by the sobering realization of the mess they had to clean up. “Everything that you see in there, we have just built up little by little, piece by piece,” Mr. Schuetta said. “And within 30 minutes, it was all gone.” “I thought we’d be took out by a tornado," he added. “Flooding was the last thing on our mind.” In Poplar Bluff, Mo., Mount Calvary Powerhouse Church had to reschedule and relocate its Sunday services after the nearby Black River surged past its banks, turning the church’s parking lot into a muddy brown lake. The church sits atop a small hill, but the congregation didn’t know whether it was high enough from the floods. The pastor, Bishop Ron Webb, needed someone to take him there by boat after he had preached. The answer came hours later, when the county sheriff, Mark Dobbs, delivered Bishop Webb to the church’s front steps. The water had not reached the entrance. Bishop Webb was especially worried about the downstairs and went to check out the electrical system. He returned about 15 minutes later. Relief had washed over his face. “Hallelujah,” Bishop Webb said. About an hour northeast of the church in Scott City, Mo., Brian Bowles, 51, helped his son and grandchildren resettle after a tree fell on their house. Mr. Bowles, who works for a company that does road and infrastructure construction, was also anticipating busy days ahead. Many roads and culverts had been washed out. “They told us to be prepared for extra work,” he said. The brunt of the storms moved on Sunday to eastern Mississippi, nearly all of Alabama, northwestern Georgia and eastern Tennessee. Areas to the east, from southeastern Virginia to northern Florida, face the greatest risk of excessive rainfall from the storm on Monday. The Weather Prediction Center expects between 1.5 and 2.5 inches of rain there, with more possible in some sections, especially northern Florida and the eastern Carolinas. As the storm system moves east, parts of the southern Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states may experience gusty winds, thunderstorms and possibly tornadoes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is cutting $325 million in grants that was to go to New York State, much of it destined for essential flood mitigation efforts in New York City, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office. The cuts are part of a broader assault by President Trump and Kristi Noem, his homeland security secretary, on the federal government’s disaster response responsibilities, with both arguing that states should shoulder the burden for this work. But the loss of the FEMA funds will be particularly damaging to the New York City area, where the remnants of Hurricane Ida killed 14 New Yorkers in 2021, drowning 11 of them in basement apartments. Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, questioned the wisdom of the cuts, saying the grants were “critical to help us rebuild” after a litany of major weather disasters that had hit the state in recent years. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Cutting infrastructure funding for communities across New York is shortsighted and a massive risk to public safety,” Ms. Hochul said in a statement. FEMA announced on Friday that it was canceling the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, calling it in a statement “wasteful and ineffective” and “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.” BRIC has distributed $5 billion in grants nationally since it started in 2020, during Mr. Trump’s first term. Close to $1 billion that has been awarded but not distributed to government entities will be diverted back to the Treasury Department, the agency said — adding that it was “canceling all BRIC applications from fiscal years 2020-2023.” Just one year ago, FEMA celebrated some of the projects supported by those grants, saying they would help local governments “address high-level current and future risks to natural disasters,” including “extreme heat, wildfires, drought, hurricanes, earthquakes and increased flooding.” Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, said the funding reductions “pose serious risks to multiple communities across the five boroughs.” Ms. Mamelak Altus noted that the program was designed to protect communities from natural disasters and to save the federal government money it might otherwise spend on disaster relief. “Multiple studies have shown that $1 spent in advance saves $6 in response and recovery costs down the line,” she said. “This incredible return on investment is why we have already reached out to our federal partners, but are also simultaneously reviewing our legal options to protect New York City and ensure our residents receive every dollar they deserve.” A report last year from Allstate, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the chamber’s foundation said the potential savings were even greater. When taking into account the local economic effects of such investments, “every $1 spent on climate resilience and preparedness saves communities $13,” the report said. The cuts affect all of New York State but are largely concentrated in New York City. More than $11 million has been eliminated for a storm surge barrier to protect the Polo Grounds Towers public housing development and a neighboring public school in Harlem; $100 million has been eliminated for storm water mitigation measures in East Elmhurst, Queens, and in Central Harlem. State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens, who represents East Elmhurst and Corona, was outraged by the news that climate resiliency projects in her district would be cut. “My neighbors could die if we have another rainstorm like we had during Hurricane Ida,” said Ms. Ramos, who is running for mayor. She pledged to push the state to make up the shortfall. More than $20 million in federal funding has been eliminated for storm water mitigation efforts designed to protect residents of the Breukelen, Nostrand and Sheepshead Bay Houses, all public housing developments in Brooklyn. The FEMA webpages describing those projects have been taken down. One erased webpage, available on the Wayback Machine, a digital repository operated through the Internet Archive, noted that the Nostrand and Sheepshead Bay Houses, which are home to more than 4,000 low-income New Yorkers, “are at risk of extreme flooding due to their proximity to a coastal water body and increased rainfall from climate change.” Latrice M. Walker, a Democratic assemblywoman whose district is just north of the Breukelen Houses, said that completing climate resiliency projects was both a logistical and moral imperative. “To not do so is egregious — and it’s racist,” she said. The Trump administration is also cutting more than $40 million for coastal protections in Lower Manhattan. In March, Zach Iscol, the head of New York City’s office of emergency management, told the City Council that the Trump administration had put as much as two-thirds of the city’s emergency response budget at risk; federal funds underwrite 66 percent of the department’s budgeted head count. “I might fall off the couch,” said Amy Chester, the director of Rebuild by Design, a New York University-based nonprofit that helps communities adapt to climate change, when told about the cuts. “These are so important — every single one of these programs are life and death.”

Rivers rose rapidly across much of the Midwest and the South on Saturday, prompting water rescues, evacuation orders and road closures as a relentless storm dumped rain on the region. The increased flooding, which was happening from Texas to Ohio, came after days of heavy rains and tornadoes that killed at least 16 people, including a 5-year-old in Arkansas and a firefighter in Missouri. Forecasters warned of more flooding, saying that some rivers were not expected to crest until Tuesday or Wednesday. “We’ll be dealing with the river flooding the next couple days, even the next couple weeks in some places,” said Colby Pope, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Little Rock, Ark. Emergency workers reported water rescues in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas. Officialsissued evacuation orders for two small Kentucky towns, Butler and Falmouth, along the Licking River, and for the city of Shelbyville, Ind., along the Big Blue and Little Blue Rivers. Residents along the Kentucky River have also been evacuated. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT On Saturday, the National Weather Service issued flash flood emergencies for Memphis and the Little Rock area. A tornado touched down near the city of Florence, Ala., the agency said. And flooding and flash flood warnings were in place for a region stretching from Louisiana to Indiana, with up to 15 inches of rain having fallen in the worst hit areas. Another two to four inches of rain was expected to fall in some places on Sunday. The storm has killed people across four states, including a 9-year-old boy who was swept away by floodwaters in Frankfort, Ky., and Chevy Gall, a firefighter with the Beaufort-Leslie Fire Protection District in Missouri, who died in a crash while driving to help rescue people from the floods. At least nine weather-related deaths have been reported in Tennessee. Some of the heaviest rain so far has fallen in Arkansas and in southern Missouri. In Lonsdale, Ark., firefighters said on Saturday that they were trying to help 10 people and 65 horses evacuate a flooded horse training center. In West Plains, Mo., Mayor Mike Topliff said that some buildings had taken on water after several inches of rain fell in a few hours. He said there were nine water rescues in his city, and at least one person had died. Across Arkansas, where trees and power lines had been toppled, and where a train derailed when a bridge collapsed, many residents were hunkering down. In Cabot, in rural Central Arkansas, some homes had become small islands, surrounded by floodwaters on all sides. More than 100,000 customers were without power in the state as of Saturday evening, according to poweroutage.us. In Jacksonville, not far from Little Rock, Tonya Coosenberry stood on her front porch wrapped in a blanket, watching the road in front of her house disappear beneath the water. “This is probably the worst flooding we’ve had in nearly 15 years,” she said. On Saturday, wet weather stretched from East Texas to New York, and federal data showed rivers rising rapidly in some parts of the region. The Black River near Poplar Bluff, Mo., surged from four feet to a flood stage of nearly 17 feet overnight. The river is expected to continue rising there through Sunday morning, with an evening crest expected just below record levels. Emergency responders, including an urban search and rescue team, were waiting in Poplar Bluff on Saturday, preparing to help evacuate people if needed. Elsewhere, water levels were increasing quickly on the Kaskaskia River in Illinois, the Mississippi River along the Missouri-Kentucky border and the Ohio River along the Illinois-Kentucky border. Many highways have closed in Indiana and Ohio, though some rivers there are not expected to reach peak levels for several more days. The Spring River in Hardy, Ark., was already at a major flood stage on Saturday, reaching the second-highest crest ever recorded there. The ground is saturated and can no longer absorb the rain, which means it “has nowhere to go and it runs off and creates more flooding,” said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center. The stormy weather is expected to shift east on Sunday, giving the central United States a break. While there’s a chance for rain along the East Coast, the heaviest rains are expected in the southeast from the Gulf Coast to the Southern Appalachians. In northern Kentucky, another inch or two of rain is still expected before the long stretch of bad weather finally clears, said Nate McGinnis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio. But the flood risk is not as high as it was on Friday and Saturday. Still, places across the storm’s path, including Louisville, Ky., and Memphis, have prepared for conditions to worsen. In Tyrone, Ky., where both roads into town were flooded, residents were evacuating on Saturday by boat as the waters rose. Bud and Tammy Morgan, who were waiting with their pets for an evacuation raft, planned to spend the night at a hotel and hope their home would survive. . Elsewhere, people were contending with damage that had already been done. In Hopkinsville, Ky., in the southwest of the state near the Tennessee line, floodwaters had inundated some homes, leaving mud on the floors and overwhelming losses. “Everything is just destroyed,” said Brittanie Bogard, a city councilwoman, who began to cry as she described what she encountered when visiting flooded homes. Though the rain slowed overnight, allowing the level of the North Fork Little River to drop several feet, it was still raining on Saturday morning and the river was beginning to rise again. Jerry Gilliam, the judge executive for Christian County, which includes Hopkinsville, said emergency responders performed about 20 rescues from residences, and moved 40 dogs from a pet boarding service near the river. The county jail also sits right next to the river. “We were just inches away from evacuating around 550 inmates,” he said. “But fortunately last night, that’s when the water started receding.” Many of the towns experiencing flooding are accustomed to high water and seemed to be taking the conditions in stride. In Cairo, Ill., which sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, pumps were placed around town and a levee gate was barricaded as a moderate, steady rain fell on Saturday morning. Some streets were flooded, but no property damage had been reported. “Everybody within the city is working around the clock to make sure we keep the water out,” said Romello Orr, a member of the City Council and a restaurant owner in Cairo. Outside Winchester, Ky., where the Kentucky River runs, Karl Crase said the lower-floor dining area at his restaurant, Hall’s on the River, was underwater on Saturday. He was hopeful that this flood would not be as bad as some in the past. “We get the beauty of being on the river and the benefits and the uniqueness that comes with that. Then we become Hall’s in the River,” Mr. Crase said. “It’s part and parcel of the life we lead.”

Over the past few days, more than 30 tornadoes have shredded a vast stretch of the central United States, and relentless rain has pushed creeks and streams beyond their banks. In Kentucky, floodwaters swept away a 9-year-old boy, making him at least the eighth person killed by the violent series of storms. Officials in many storm-battered places beseeched residents on Friday to hunker down and stay vigilant, rather than begin assessing the destruction or cleaning up. The worst may be yet to come as a forecast of heavy rains with the potential for more tornadoes and floods extends through the weekend. “We have a lot of bad weather coming still,” Michael Mueller, the county judge and executive in Franklin County, Ky., said on Friday. “It’s very, very dangerous out there.” The storm had stalled on Friday over a region reaching from Arkansas to Michigan, places where residents and officials were painfully familiar with the perils and hardship that can come from tornadoes and overflowing waterway.The reminders came as the death toll slowly climbed. In Tennessee, at least five people were killed by the storms, including a teenage girl, and several inches of rain that fell throughout Thursday caused major floods and shut down roadways. Garry Moore, a fire chief in Whitewater, Mo., with nearly 30 years serving the local fire protection district, was killed on Wednesday while responding to tornado damage. A 27-year-old man in Danville, Ind., was killed after coming into contact with downed power lines. And in Frankfort, Ky., the body of the 9-year-old boy was found after he had been carried off by floodwaters while walking to a school bus stop, officials said. The anguish was also still fresh in Kentucky, where flash floods in the eastern part of the state killed 11 people and displaced hundreds earlier this year. Gov. Andy Beshear pleaded for people to take the “rising and standing water seriously” and to avoid unnecessary risks on flooded roadways. “It’s how we lost too many people in the past,” Mr. Beshear said. “Just turn around.” In Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana, people were venturing out on Friday to gather supplies and pick up sandbags. But mostly they simply waited, uncertain of what the fate would be for their homes and their communities, with some looking to the rising waters with a sense of unease and resignation. “There’s not much you can do,” said Janice Stegall, the town clerk in the small Indiana community of Medora, situated on the White River’s east fork, where waters were expected to rise to a near-record of 19 feet on Sunday. In Paducah, Ky., the increasing level of the Ohio River prompted the authorities to begin installing floodgates on Friday, they said, a measure local officials last resorted to in 2019 when severe flooding threatened the city. In Hopkinsville, Ky., a city of roughly 30,000 people northwest of Nashville, the first hours of daylight on Friday were spent rescuing about a dozen residents who were trapped in the rising water, officials said. Editors’ Picks His Life Savings Were Mailed to Him by Paper Check. Now, It’s Gone. Is There a Least Bad Alcohol? Rocking Pink and Ready to Party The flooding on Friday and the dangers that could still come were fueled by widespread rain from eastern Texas to Illinois that was expected to continue through the weekend. The National Weather Service warned of a flash flood event that could endanger lives and break records across the Lower Ohio Valley and the Mid-South to Lower Mississippi Valley. In New Madrid, Mo., a city along the Mississippi River at risk from rising water levels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers brought in sandbag-filling machines, to cheers from city workers. The mayor, Nick White, said on Friday that he worried that the weekend had the potential to bring one of the worst floods in the city’s history and that forecasters had said the river could rise over 40 feet and stay at the level for as long as two weeks. As daunting as the threat was, he believed that New Madrid, a city of about 2,600 perched atop a horseshoe bend in the Mississippi River, was perhaps more prepared than ever. “We’ve got backup generators, we’ve got a backup pump,” Mr. White said, adding, “We’ve been really proactive versus reactive.” In Boston, Ky., roughly 35 miles south of Louisville, Bruce Gooden could see the water creeping up as he cut hair at his barbershop near Lick Creek. The heavy rain swelling the creek could not flow into the nearby Rolling Fork River, which was already above flood stage. Mr. Gooden, 63, had seen the water rise before, but hour after hour of heavy downpours and cracking lightning fed a sense of doom. “The water has never made it into my shop before, but I fear it will happen this time,” he said as he kept clipping. He had sand piled in the bed of his truck, he said, and was ready to bag and stack it if the water rose high enough. “I’ll play it by ear,” he said. “I’ll stay open as long as I can.” On Friday, the bull’s-eye for the heaviest rain that could lead to dangerous flooding fell within a large portion of Arkansas and a sliver of southern Missouri, including the Ozarks. Forecasters expect the threat to spread into the boot heel of Missouri and western Kentucky and Tennessee on Saturday. “I think, unfortunately, the next 24 to 36 hours is when we’re going to start to see the heaviest rain totals of this event,” Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said on Friday morning. The risk of severe thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes is expected to increase on Saturday in a zone that includes Memphis, Little Rock, Ark., and Jackson, Miss. Powerful and damaging wind gusts and large hailstones — perhaps bigger than limes — are more likely in this area than tornadoes. As people made preparations for possible flooding, anxiety among customers at a grocery store in Boston, Ky., seemed to be rising as gradually as the water. “You have to be ahead of it and aware of it, make plans,” said Steve Fox, 68, whose house is on a hill nearby, high enough that he believes he is safe from flooding. But the hill could become an island, he said, if the water rises enough. “The water will probably get over the roads, and I’ll be cut off for a few days,” he said. For those around long enough to remember, a flood in 1997 — one of the deadliest disasters in Kentucky history — is the yardstick against which events like this are measured, and residents fear the coming days could bring something comparable. Denise Baker has worked at the Boston Food Mart, where Mr. Fox was shopping, for 31 years. In all that time, floodwater has never breached her store, she said, but she knew that was no guarantee that it would not happen this time. She knows how much the community relies on the store, and she was determined to maintain that lifeline — even if the store were to become accessible only by boat. “We’re going to try to keep the store open as long as possible,” she said.

Floodwaters covered highways from Arkansas to Ohio. Schools in waterlogged communities called off Friday classes. And river towns across the South and Midwest piled up sandbags ahead of a weekend when forecasters expect intense rain and major floods. The preparations for heavy flooding intensified on Thursday following an outbreak of tornadoes and heavy winds overnight. The storm leveled homes and businesses and killed at least seven people in three states, including a fire chief in Missouri and a teenage girl in Tennessee. At least two offices of the National Weather Service have said they are delaying or skipping sending staff into the field to survey damage from this week’s severe weather, a key step that meteorologists usually use to confirm whether or not a tornado has struck. On Wednesday night, the Weather Service office in Louisville, Ky., said in a statement to local news organizations that it would be unable to do storm surveys because of the active threat of severe weather, a concern that was echoed on Thursday by Justin Gibbs, the meteorologist in charge of the Paducah, Ky., office, who said the ongoing rain and flooding would slow down the survey process. McNairy County in Tennessee, one of the hardest-hit areas of the state and where at least one person has been killed by the storms, is experiencing “widespread communications issues,” the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said in a statement. The officials said that several inches of rain and damaging winds continue to threaten western Tennessee, including McNairy County, through the end of Thursday and potentially on Saturday.

Last year was a busy hurricane season with storm after storm racing across the Caribbean, bringing multiple storms ashore in Florida, ravaging rains to the Carolina mountains and strong winds to downtown Houston; another robust season is likely to occur in the Atlantic in 2025. Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University, said that this year’s season was likely to be an above-average — but not hyperactive — one. In his team’s annual forecast on Thursday, the researchers said they expected a hectic season of 17 named storms, including nine hurricanes — four of them potentially reaching major status, meaning Category 3 or higher. In a typical season, there are 14 named storms with seven hurricanes, three of them major. “Things aren’t as primed as they were last year at this time,” Dr. Klotzbach said. “We’re still dealing with pesky heat in the subtropical eastern Atlantic and Caribbean. That combo historically has led to busy hurricane seasons.” In April of last year, this same team forecast an extremely active season, and their forecast looked reasonably accurate. Storms took off early in the season with Beryl, which set a record for the earliest point in a season that a storm has ever reached a Category 5. Then, at the peak of hurricane season, everything went quiet. There was a long lull, and questions over whether the forecast was a bust, but then the Atlantic ignited again, producing storms like Helene, which lashed Florida before bringing damaging flooding to the southern Appalachians, and Milton, which launched itself just south of Tampa, bringing terrifying tornadoes up and down the Florida peninsula. Last year had so many destructive storms that the World Meteorological Organization, which is responsible for naming hurricanes, announced on Wednesday that it had retired the names of three Atlantic storms: Beryl, Helene and Milton. Names are on a six-year rotation, but are retired when a storm causes significant damage or noteworthy activity. This year, Dr. Klotzbach’s team said, they expect an above-average probability of major hurricanes to make landfall along the continental United States coastline and in the Caribbean. Dr. Klotzbach and his colleagues projected some probabilities that a major hurricane may affect the United States: about a 3 percent chance of one coming within 50 miles of New York and a 35 percent chance for Florida. This is slightly above the regular occurrence of 2 percent for New York and 29 percent for Florida in an average season. This year, they believe, the steering current around a high-pressure system in the Atlantic may tend to be stronger. In a hurricane season without El Niño, like this one is likely to be, that would push storms farther to the west and create more favorable conditions for storms to form in the western half of the Atlantic basin. “We certainly saw that difference in 2023 compared to 2024,” Dr. Klotzbach said. It’s reasonable to take this forecast with a grain of sea salt; the seasonal forecast in April hasn’t always been the most accurate. Colorado State University’s April forecast for the 2023 hurricane season called for a slightly below-average season with 13 named storms. Instead, there were 20. But Dr. Klotzbach says the accuracy of the April forecast is improving.

At least two offices of the National Weather Service have said they are delaying or skipping sending staff into the field to survey damage from this week’s severe weather, a key step that meteorologists usually use to confirm whether or not a tornado has struck. On Wednesday night, the Weather Service office in Louisville, Ky., said in a statement to local news organizations that it would be unable to do storm surveys because of the active threat of severe weather, a concern that was echoed on Thursday by Justin Gibbs, the meteorologist in charge of the Paducah, Ky., office, who said the ongoing rain and flooding would slow down the survey process. The statement from the Louisville office also cited a “lack of available staffing” as one of its reasons, prompting some to question whether the Weather Service, which has faced significant staffing cuts under the Trump administration, was able to perform its mission. In February, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is the parent agency of the Weather Service, cut hundreds of employees, and more are expected. Last month, forecasters temporarily reduced balloon launches at a handful of sites, eliminating some of the data that produces weather forecast models. Officials have declined to speculate on future impacts. Ryan Sharp, the acting meteorologist in charge in Louisville, said his office was focused on addressing the flood concerns and the ongoing severe threats. The statement, he said, was intended to indicate that some of the staff had taken leave for spring break, and he added that those employees have since returned to work.

The Trump administration has abruptly laid off the entire staff running a $4.1 billion program to help low-income households across the United States pay their heating and cooling bills. The firings threaten to paralyze the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which was created by Congress in 1981 and helps to offset high utility bills for roughly 6.2 million people from Maine to Texas during frigid winters and hot summers. “They fired everybody, there’s nobody left to do anything,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which works with states to secure funding from the program. “Either this was incredibly sloppy, or they intend to kill the program altogether.” The layoffs were part of a broader purge on Monday of approximately 10,000 employees from the Department of Health and Human Services, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved to drastically reorganize the agency. Roughly 25 employees had been overseeing the energy assistance program, which is also known as LIHEAP. All had been laid off, Mr. Wolfe said. Congress had approved $4.1 billion for the program for fiscal year 2025, and about 90 percent of that money had already been sent to states in October to help households struggling with high heating costs. There is still about $378 million left to assist with summer cooling as households crank up their air-conditioners. Heat waves in the United States are growing more intense and lasting longer as a result of climate change. Normally, the federal government sends the money to state agencies after allocating the funds using a complicated formula and performing various reviews and audits. Some states, like Maine, use the money to help low-income families to offset the cost of buying fuel oil to heat their homes in the winter. States also use the money to weatherize homes and provide emergency assistance to households at risk of being disconnected from their utility. Now, it’s not clear how the remaining funds could be disbursed to the states, even though Congress has explicitly ordered the federal government to spend the money. “If there’s no staff, how do you allocate the rest of this money?” Mr. Wolfe said. “My fear is that they’ll say we’ve got this funding, but there’s nobody left to administer it, so we can’t send it out.” In an emailed statement, Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency “will continue to comply” with federal law “and as a result of the reorganization, will be better positioned to execute on Congress’s statutory intent.” Over the past two months, the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to freeze or withhold spending authorized by Congress. Those moves have triggered a growing number of legal challenges and judicial rulings that say doing so is unconstitutional. The firings at the energy assistance office triggered a furious response from several Democratic lawmakers. “What ‘efficiency’ is achieved by firing everyone in Maine whose job is to help Mainers afford heating oil when it’s cold?,” Representative Jared Golden, a Democrat who represents a largely rural district in Maine that voted for President Trump, wrote in a social media post. Senator Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he would work to try to unlock the program’s funding. “Eliminating the entire federal staff responsible for LIHEAP — a program that millions of households depend on to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer — isn’t reform,” he said in a statement. “It’s sabotage.” The office of Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, issued a statement saying: “Senator Collins has been a longtime advocate for LIHEAP and the critical financial assistance it provides to lower income families to help ensure that they can stay warm during the winter months. It is unclear how, and if, the administration of this program will be affected by the HHS staffing changes.” A study published in The Economic Journal last year found that roughly 17 percent of U.S. households spend more than one-tenth of their income on energy, a threshold that researchers often define as a “severe” energy burden. The study also found a strong relationship between energy affordability and winter mortality. “When home heating is less affordable, more people die each winter,” Seema Jayachandran, an economist at Princeton and one of the authors of the study, wrote on Monday. “That’s what our analysis found for a period when LIHEAP was in place. Without LIHEAP, the effect would presumably much larger.”

At least six people were killed and more than 730,000 customers were without power in the Great Lakes region on Monday after a spring storm brought freezing rain and sleet over the weekend. Three children — two siblings and a cousin — were killed after a tree struck their vehicle in Michigan on Sunday afternoon, the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office said. The siblings were a 4-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl. The cousin was an 11-year-old girl. “At this time, it appears weather is the main contributing factor to this accident,” the office said. The identities of the children were not released. On Sunday afternoon, severe crosswinds blew a tractor-trailer on its side, killing the driver, Jagbir Singh, 34, of Ontario, Canada, in Valparaiso, Ind., according to Sgt. Benjamin McFalls of the Porter County Sheriff’s Office. The severe weather also caused an Amish buggy to overturn, killing its driver, Lonnie Yoder, 84, in Elkhart County, Ind., on Sunday afternoon, according to the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office. And in Montgomery County, Ind., a tree that had blown onto a roadway caused a driver to swerve, resulting in a head-on collision that killed one driver, according to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. On Monday, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan was closed on Monday because of hazardous ice conditions, the authorities said. There was no timetable for its reopening. A National Weather Service office in Michigan posted photos on social media of trees weighed down with icicles. Accumulations of ice there ranged from half an inch to nearly an inch. In Ontario, images on social media showed downed and ice-encased trees, some of which were making roads impassable. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In Michigan, state officials activated the State Emergency Operations Center after the ice storm downed trees and power lines, making some roads impassable in the northern part of the state. In eastern Canada, the authorities in Quebec on Monday morning warned of the possibility of “several hours of freezing rain” and snowfall until Tuesday morning. This ice storm produced more ice than usual, said Harold Dippman, a meteorologist at the Weather Service office in Gaylord, Mich. A typical one in the region produces up to a quarter of an inch of ice. The storm was also lasting longer than usual. Mr. Dippman said a typical one lasts six to 12 hours, while this one lasted multiple days. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In Michigan, about 300,000 customers were without power on Monday afternoon, according to the monitoring site poweroutage.us, with around 48,000 customers without power in neighboring Wisconsin, and more than 40,000 without power in Indiana. In Ontario, more 340,000 customers were without power on Monday afternoon, according to poweroutage.com. The outages, concentrated in central and eastern Ontario, were largely caused by ice that weighed down tree branches, Hydro One, Ontario’s main power transmission company, said on its website.