Federal hurricane researchers are predicting below-average activity during the for the first time in over a decade, thanks to incoming strong El Niño conditions that are expected to help limit storm formation.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association is forecasting eight to 14 named storms this season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Of those, three to six are expected to become hurricanes, and one to three of those are expected to become major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or more.
An average season ends with 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
NOAA officials presented their 2026 outlook Thursday from the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Lakeland, Florida, marking of the agency’s vital Hurricane Hunter aircraft.
The main contributor to this year’s quiet outlook, forecasters said, is the expected return of El Niño before the Atlantic reaches its busiest time of year. El Niño is generally associated with fewer storms in the Atlantic.
The last time the agency issued a below-average May outlook was in 2015, officials said.
Still, NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs said powerful hurricanes have formed and hit land during past El Niño seasons.
“Even though we’re expecting a below-average season in the Atlantic, it’s very important to understand that it only takes one, ” Jacobs said at the news conference.
Good news for h
El Niño and La Niña are two opposing climate patterns that disrupt normal wind and current conditions in the Pacific Ocean, impacting weather across the globe.
El Niño tends to increase vertical wind shear across the Atlantic, Jacobs said, which helps to break up storms and prevent hurricane formation and intensification.
Though El Niño is not yet in full swing, scientists at the Climate Prediction Center said on May 14 that there’s an 82% chance such conditions will emerge sometime between May and July. Jacobs said it’s also likely that this year’s El Niño conditions will be moderate to strong.
That’s good news for h, but bad for those neighboring the Pacific Ocean, where Jacobs said forecasters are expecting to see heightened activity this season. El Niño has the opposite effect in the Pacific, he said, reducing wind shear and making it easier for strong storms to form.
Since El Niño’s impacts are most prominent deep in the tropical Atlantic, Matthew Rosencrans, NOAA’s lead seasonal hurricane forecaster, said we’ll likely see fewer long-track storms in 2026. But a few so-called homegrown storms could still spin up in the Gulf.
“You could get those storms in the Gulf that have the short awareness times,” Rosencrans said.
Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, urged those in all hurricane-prone states to prepare for the upcoming season as usual, regardless of the forecast.
“Don’t let words like ‘below average’ change the way you prepare,” Graham said.
A better outlook
This year’s outlook is in stark contrast to prior years, when warm ocean waters and other factors fueled unusually prolific hurricane seasons.
In 2024, researchers that warned of an extremely active season, a prediction that came to fruition. Last year saw more tropical activity than usual as well, with fewer storms than in 2024 but a high ratio of powerful hurricanes that were difficult to forecast.
Still, the National Hurricane Center made strides last season in forecasting accuracy, improvements that officials said would not have been possible without NOAA’s 50-year-old Lockheed WP-3D Orion Hurricane Hunter aircraft, known as “Miss Piggy” and “Kermit.”
Outfitted with Doppler radars and able to fly into the eye of a hurricane, the P-3 aircraft collect critical data that forecasters use to more accurately predict how strong a storm will get and where it might go, according to Rear Admiral Chad Carey, director of NOAA’s Commissioned Officer Corps.
“These flying, meteorological data collection machines are one of the most important tools we have to better understand hurricanes,” Carey said. “The data collected using NOAA aircraft improve hurricane track forecasts and intensity forecasts by as much as 20%.”
Hurricane researcher Jason Dunion on a Hurricane Hunter mission.
Photo courtesy of NOAA
Newer technology showed promise last season, too, when the National Hurricane Center in its hurricane predictions for the first time in 70 years of existence.
AI will play an even bigger role in this year’s forecasts, according to NHC Senior Hurricane Specialist John Cangialosi, who said the agency is hoping to use AI models more efficiently after experimentation last year. They’ll be incorporated in both forecast discussions and the NHC’s other blended tools.
“So we’re going to use it sort of smarter in 2026,” he told The Times-Picayune | h on Tuesday.
Cangialosi also took the opportunity to remind those in storm-prone areas that while El Niño could make it harder for storms to form in the Atlantic this year, there’s no guaranteeing where those that do form will go.
“There’s a lower risk, but it doesn’t mean there’s no risk,” Cangialosi said. “It doesn’t mean anyone is off the hook.”