NOAA says the Atlantic could finish 2026 without a single major hurricane

The Atlantic hurricane season is on course to be one of the quietest in years, and federal forecasters see little reason to change that expectation. In an updated outlook issued in early August 2026, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration held to its prediction of a below-normal season even as the calendar approaches the September stretch when Atlantic storms usually reach their peak.

The forecast is striking because it keeps alive the possibility that the basin could finish the year without a single major hurricane, meaning a Category 3 storm or stronger. That would be an unusual outcome, and it reflects an atmosphere that has turned increasingly hostile to tropical development.

NOAA lifted its below-normal odds to 75 percent

Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center now put the chance of a below-normal season at 75 percent, up from the 55 percent estimate they issued in May. The revised numbers assign a 20 percent chance to a near-normal season and just 5 percent to an above-normal one.

In its August update, the agency projected 7 to 13 named storms with winds of 39 mph or greater. Of those, 2 to 6 could strengthen into hurricanes with winds of at least 74 mph, and only 0 to 2 are expected to become major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or more. The low end of that major-hurricane range is what leaves open the prospect of a year with none at all.

An emerging El Nino is acting as a brake

The central reason for the subdued forecast is a shift in the tropical Pacific. El Nino conditions first emerged in the equatorial Pacific in June, and that pattern tends to increase wind shear across the Atlantic. Strong shear tears at the vertical structure of budding storms, making it harder for them to organize and intensify.

That Pacific influence is the mirror image of recent hyperactive seasons, which were fueled by warm water and weak shear. When forecasters at the agency describe the season as tempered, they are pointing largely to this atmospheric drag rather than to unusually cool ocean temperatures.

A slow start with Arthur and Bertha

The season has matched the cautious forecast so far. Through early August the Atlantic had produced only two named tropical storms, Arthur and Bertha, and no hurricanes. That is a notably quiet tally for a period that in busy years can already include several storms.

Historically, though, the calm of midsummer says little about what follows. The Atlantic climbs toward its statistical peak in early to mid-September, when sea-surface temperatures are warmest and conditions most favorable for rapid development. A below-normal label describes the total count over the whole season, not the risk on any given week.

Why a quiet season is not the same as no risk

Emergency managers are careful to stress that seasonal totals are a poor guide to personal danger. It takes only one landfall to make a destructive year for a given community, and some of the costliest storms in United States history struck during otherwise unremarkable seasons. A single hurricane that comes ashore near a populated coastline can cause catastrophic damage regardless of how many storms form elsewhere.

Coastal residents are still urged to keep evacuation plans, supplies, and insurance current through the end of November, when the official season closes. As the insurance industry has noted, a mild forecast can breed complacency, and the months of September and October remain the window when a below-normal season could still deliver a damaging strike.

How the season fits recent history

A below-normal year would mark a sharp contrast with several of the recent hyperactive seasons that produced long lists of named storms and repeated major hurricanes. Those busy years were driven by warm Atlantic waters combined with the opposite Pacific pattern, La Nina, which weakens the shear that El Nino now strengthens. The swing between these states is a major reason seasonal totals can vary so widely from one year to the next.

Forecasters build their outlooks by weighing ocean temperatures, the state of the Pacific, and long-range atmospheric patterns, then expressing the result as ranges and probabilities rather than a single confident number. The wide spread in the 2026 outlook, from as few as 7 named storms to as many as 13, reflects that inherent uncertainty. A quiet year remains the most likely outcome, but the forecast is a statement of odds, not a guarantee about any particular stretch of coastline.

The forecasting tools behind the outlook

Seasonal hurricane outlooks rely on a mix of statistical models trained on decades of past seasons and dynamical models that simulate the atmosphere and ocean directly. When those methods converge on a similar answer, as they did in raising the below-normal odds, forecasters gain confidence in the signal. The mid-season update exists precisely because conditions evolve; the emergence of El Nino after the initial May outlook was the kind of development that can push a forecast further in one direction.

What the outlook cannot do is predict where storms will go. Track and landfall depend on steering currents that set up only days before a storm forms, which is why seasonal forecasts speak to overall activity rather than specific threats. That distinction is central to how emergency managers use the information, treating a quiet outlook as a planning input rather than a reason to relax preparation.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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