Is Florida Doomed in 2025? Why One Smart Device's Prediction Startled Social Media
Can Alexa predict the future?
Updated Jan. 28 2025, 9:17 a.m. ET
Sometimes our smart devices tell us jokes, and other times, they scare us beyond belief. In 2021, well-known TikTok creator experienced the latter, when his Alexa got a little "too real."
User @JonBuckhouse, who makes videos of himself grilling his Alexa about anything from the zombie apocalypse to King Kong asked "what will happen to Florida in 2025?" and its prediction maybe hinted at a future ravaged by extreme weather patterns and ultimately, global warming.
Is there a shred of truth to Alexa's predictions? Or has the robot watched one too many disaster movies? Let's break down the likelihood of these predictions, plus, what natural disasters are actually impacting Florida and other states.
What does Alexa think will happen to Florida in 2025?
TikTok creator @JonBuckhouse makes videos of himself asking Alexa questions about when the world will end, if Greece will survive the zombie apocalypse, and when World War III will start. While all of the answers seem relatively jokey and fictitious, his smart device's response to his question "what will happen to Florida in 2025?" was scarily realistic, based on extreme weather patterns, which are caused by the ongoing climate crisis.
In the video, Alexa responds to Buckhouse's question by saying:
"On Sept. 4, 2025, at 3:08 pm, Florida will be hit by a Category 5 hurricane with winds as high as 205 miles per hour. Miami will be completely destroyed."
Watch it for yourself, below:
Alexa has made a few scary predictions about the planet's impending doom.
Alexa seems to think it isn't only Florida that's in trouble — when Buckhouse asked "what will happen to California in 2025?" she responded that on Aug. 4, 2025, at 3:05 p.m., the Golden State will experience a 9.6 magnitude earthquake when the San Andres fault shifts.
She continued, saying the death toll would be in the millions. Likewise, the smart device believes that in Texas, on Dec. 26 at 4:03 p.m., the Lonestar State will be hit by a huge winter storm with temperatures falling below zero.
These assumptions could be based on actual storms that have already taken place in the past, or maybe there is some truth behind it. Green Matters reached out to Amazon asking why Buckhouse's device may have responded in this way, but has not received a response.
Florida will likely not be underwater by 2025 — but it could be underwater sooner than we think.
A 2015 report that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences predicted that both Miami, Fla. and Hollywood, Calif. would be underwater by 2025.
Although as of January 2025 both cities remain dry, that's not to say they couldn't be submerged in the next decade.
Per NBC Miami, researchers from the University of Miami predicted in 2024 that the city will be 60 percent underwater by 2060 thanks to climate change. According to the 2019 version of the Unified Sea Level Rise Projection for Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact, sea levels are expected to be 10 to 17 inches higher than they were in 2000 by 2040.
This could definitely be a good sign for us to start making more immediate changes to our unsustainable ways of life, if we want to curb extreme weather patterns and global warming.
This article, originally published on May 24, 2021, has been updated.