In the weeks leading up to last year’s presidential election, Bill Nye the Science Guy appeared on MSNBC and assured viewers that voting for Kamala Harris could halt hurricanes.
I’m not exaggerating. He really said it: “The other side, as we often call it … has no plans to address climate change, no plans for long-term, um, dealing with these sorts of problems. If you have young voters out there, encourage them to vote. People say, ‘What can I do about climate change?’ If we were talking about it, associating it with big storms like this, that would be really good, but the main thing is vote.”
Today, MSNBC brought @BillNye on air for an analysis of Hurricane Milton and to offer his expertise on tropical cyclone dynamics. He told their viewers that if we vote for Kamala Harris, we can suddenly put a stop to category five hurricanes in hurricane season. pic.twitter.com/vpTg8dtx1v
— Chris Martz (@ChrisMartzWX) October 8, 2024
At the time Nye made this insane claim, Hurricane Milton was on the verge of making landfall in Florida.
Well, the joke’s on Nye.
Obviously, Harris lost big time in the presidential election, and guess what? According to AccuWeather, the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season just marked the first time in a decade that no hurricane has made landfall in the United States through the end of September.
This marks the first time in a decade — since 2015 — that the United States has seen no hurricane landfalls through the end of September. In fact, 2025 will be only the ninth year since the turn of the century without a hurricane striking the U.S. by this point in the season. Historically, this pattern has been a strong indicator of a quiet season: seven of the previous eight years in which September passed without a landfall saw no hurricanes make landfall in the United States for the remainder of the season.
“Every hurricane season is different. This hurricane season so far is quite unique, with several close calls for the United States,” AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva explained. “Erin was a major hurricane that stayed 200 miles off the coast of North Carolina in August. The Southeast was spared from major flooding from Hurricane Imelda in September, thanks in part to the rare Fujiwhara Effect. Hurricane Humberto passed within 500 miles of Imelda and helped to pull the smaller storm away from the U.S. coast and out to sea.”
Experts note that the last time the U.S. saw no hurricane landfalls through September was 2015. Since 2000, seven other seasons — 2013, 2010, 2009, 2006, 2002, 2001, and 2000 — also had no U.S. hurricane landfalls by September, and in all but one of those years (2002, when Hurricane Lili struck later), the rest of the season passed without a hurricane hitting the U.S.
Think Nye will give Donald Trump credit for that? Of course not. But you can bet that if Kamala had won, he would have gone right back to MSNBC and said, “See! I told you so!"
In the end, Bill Nye’s wild claim that voting for Kamala would somehow stop hurricanes spectacularly backfired.
I’m not saying electing President Trump had anything to do with this year’s unusually calm Atlantic hurricane season because storms don’t care about politics. No vote, no candidate, and certainly no politician’s promises can control Mother Nature. Yet there was Bill Nye the Partisan Guy, strutting onto MSNBC with “science-based” voter advice, confidently telling Americans they could control the weather with their vote.
Fast forward to today, and he’s left with nothing but egg on his face.
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