ORLANDO, Fla. – Would you believe hurricane season is now only three and a half months away?
The days are absolutely flying by. I’ve held off sharing any too early thoughts on the season ahead but I feel given how quickly that time of the year is sneaking up on us, let’s rip the band aid off.
While we’re still quite a ways out from the official start of hurricane season, and even more so from the climatological peak, I can comfortably say we have a rough handle on how things could play out.
Right away I want to emphasize - this is not a landfall prediction. This isn’t another above or below average forecast.
I rather want to strip down the season to strictly the science and talk a little about what I’m seeing, and some key takeaways for you at home.
ENSO
This is the enormous elephant in the room. Something I’ve seen several times over the last few months, since roughly December, popping up in other headlines, over on social media and being openly discussed among tropical meteorologists in a huge way.
ENSO is the kicker in my opinion. ENSO is the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which helps describe what our sea surface temperatures are doing in the Tropical Pacific. We’ve been under neutral to La Nina conditions since the 2024 hurricane season.
That would suggest the flip is coming. Last time we encountered an El Nino was the 2023 season, which Floridians remember thanks to Hurricane Idalia.
Right now, El Nino is not fully sold. There are patterns in our large scale atmosphere that suggest warming is coming and La Nina will continue to erode, but the uncertainty is still so high it’s tough to call out if El Nino should be forecasted and if so, how strong?
We would need a moderate to strong El Nino set up across the entirety of the Pacific equatorial waters to really shred the potential for an active season.
When I say “active” I mean average or greater. Active for me doesn’t immediately mean 2005, 2020 or even 2023.
A good cluster of our handy dandy climate models all whisper toward a warm neutral ENSO pattern, if not weak El Nino by hurricane season peak. This changes things drastically, and actually makes it a bit tougher to forecast how our season will look from start to finish than if we swung full-on El Nino.
Track “Flavor”
I am coining this small section the track “flavor” piece of the 2026 hurricane season outlook. Right away, I think we’ll see quite a few similarities to last year.
Given where our climate models are suggesting our primary steering drivers could be positioned from May through to December, I’ve developed a couple of early hot spots to look out for.
Also note, I said May to December, which involves a month on either end outside the calendar hurricane season. That’s because what our semi-permanent circulations do even year-round will attribute to how the tropics respond when game time arrives.
Despite the projections suggesting El Nino is locked in, climate models paint a picture more reminiscent of an ENSO neutral pattern from the west coast of North America to the Atlantic basin.
We’re not seeing rocking wind shear values across the tropics. Our subtropical high is centered and well “stacked” over the center parts of the Atlantic.
I’m also noticing signs of greater troughing out near the west coast of Europe.
These clues tell me a number of things:
Fish storms are a huge possibility. The central Atlantic keeping our high pressure locked in means tropical waves will travel westward, but as they try to develop it’ll be easier for them to slip north like Erin, Gabrielle and Humberto did in 2025.
The stronger troughing out in the northeast however, could displace our high pressure closer to the U.S., and actually “bridge” it, if the pattern is right over the east coast.
These are variables we can’t map out from this much of a distance. We’ll just have to play it by ear.
What you need to know
Florida and the east coast of the nation could flirt with a few shelf grazers this year. If the trends we’re seeing now stick as we go through March and April, I believe impacts won’t be as casually avoided as the year prior.
Our neighbors in the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles of the northern Caribbean will also want to keep an eye out this upcoming season.
As we get closer to June 1, especially into the spring season transition I will make it a point to put out more recurring updates on where we’re headed as the hurricane season rolls in. Hoping for the best for all us, and I got our six covered no matter what the case may be!