Atlantic hurricane season 2026 sets a new record - USA Today
No hurricane has formed in the Atlantic Ocean so far in the 2026 season as of Sept. 12, setting a new record for the latest date in a modern hurricane season without at least one hurricane.
Not even a potential tropical cyclone is in sight on the National Hurricane Center forecast map, thanks in part to the influence of a powerful El NinΜo that's kept a lid on storms this summer.
Only two seasons in the modern satellite record β 2002 and 2014 β made it almost this long without a hurricane. In each year, a hurricane formed on Sept. 11.
But this year? "Crickets," said Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist at WPLG-TV in South Florida, in his Substack blog "Eye on the Tropics."
Before modern satellites, two seasons in the early 1900s are believed to have produced no hurricanes. However, when you start looking at hurricane history before 1966, scientists include a lot of caveats due to the limits of the data available.
Even though a hurricane hasn't formed yet this summer, that doesn't mean a dangerous hurricane couldn't still crop up later this season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30. It's happened before after late starts to the season.
A typical season has 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes. By the Sept. 10 peak, the basin has usually produced four hurricanes and even more tropical storms. So far this year, only five tropical storms have formed.
"The Atlantic basin is as dead as it gets for early September," Lowry wrote.
Scientists don't just compare hurricane seasons by the number of storms that form. They also keep track of something called Accumulated Cyclone Energy, calculated based on the intensity and duration of storms.
So far this season, that measure is only 4.4. That's the lowest of any season through Sept. 10 since 1950, said Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University.
When a strong El NinΜo forms along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, connections in the atmosphere produce shearing winds over the western tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean that tend to batter potential tropical systems and prevent hurricanes from forming.
The vertical wind shear in summer 2026 has shattered previous records, Klotzbach said. In early September, the average wind shear over 30 days was the strongest since the global satellite era began in 1979, averaging more than 3 knots stronger than any other year, he said.
Seasonal outlooks predicted that the El NinΜo β a pattern of warmer-than-normal water along the equator β would limit the number of hurricanes this year, and those forecasts have been verified so far.
After Tropical Storm Dolly formed on Aug. 27, forecasters said the effects of the shearing winds could be seen in satellite images, and the hurricane center predicted that it would be short-lived. The storm lasted less than 24 hours.
All of the other top five years for vertical wind shear occurred at some point during an El NinΜo phase in the Pacific: 1979, 1986, 2015 and 1997.
El NinΜo can't take all the credit in 2026, said Jhordanne Jones, an assistant professor at the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State who studies seasonal tropical storm activity and climate predictability.
At the same time that El NinΜo is shutting down rising air that would lead to rainfall, Saharan dust has been moving over the Atlantic, and the two patterns are working together to restrict formation of tropical storms, Jones said. "So it's like a double suppression."
Dry air and Saharan dust have also helped limit tropical activity and have contributed to an overall extended drought period for the tropical Atlantic, Jones said. For example, roughly 80% of the island of Puerto Rico is in drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
If things continue as is, she said, "we're not going to be seeing any activity for a while."
Much of the early hurricane history has been pieced together from observations on land, aircraft reconnaissance and ship logs over the open ocean, according to Matthew Rosencrans, a meteorologist with NOAA's Center for Weather and Climate Prediction.
Seasons prior to 1950 may be "significantly underestimated," Klotzbach said. If a hurricane remained over the open ocean and didn't impact land, for example, it might never have been reported.
In the seasons that have been reconstructed through historical analysis by NOAA experts, five years saw a hurricane form after Sept. 11. Those formation dates were Oct. 8, 1905; Sept. 21, 1941; Sept. 16, 1877; Sept. 15, 1922; and Sept. 12, 1912.
The two seasons with no identified hurricanes were 1907 and 1914. But again, because they were in the pre-satellite era, it's possible a hurricane far out to sea could have formed and vanished without a trace, Rosencrans said.
Since the satellite era began in 1966, the fewest number of hurricanes observed during any single season is two. That happened in 1982 and again in 2013.
"Big losses and impactful storms can still happen in seasons with such late starts," Rosencrans said.
In 2022, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, Danielle, formed on Sept. 2. Two later storms became major hurricanes, Fiona and Ian. Ian made landfall on the Southwest Florida coast on Sept. 28 and was blamed for at least 156 fatalities in the United States and an estimated $113 billion in total damage.
In 2002, Gustav became a hurricane on Sept. 11. Two additional major hurricanes came later, Isidore and Lili. Isidore made landfall in Cuba, the Yucatan and Louisiana.
Lili made landfall on the Louisiana coast, according to the hurricane center's final report, leaving more than $1 billion in damage along a "trail of muck and misery."
Doyle Rice and Dinah Voyles Pulver are national correspondents for USA TODAY, focused on climate and weather. Jennifer Borresen is a USA TODAY graphics journalist. Reach them at drice@usatoday.com; dpulver@usatoday.com and jborresen@usatoday.com.
