The Atlantic has been exceptionally quiet this hurricane season — quieter than ever recorded — as a powerful El Niño suppresses storms before they can develop.
No Atlantic hurricanes have formed so far this year, and the National Hurricane Center says none are expected for at least another week, despite the period that would typically mark the height of the season. Just five tropical storms have developed, all of them relatively weak and short-lived.
Saturday marked a record in 2026 for the latest start to a season without a storm reaching sustained winds of 64 mph (103 kph), the threshold for hurricane status, according to Nick Novella, a meteorologist at the government’s Weather Prediction Center. A few pre-1950 seasons also went this late without a documented hurricane, but forecasters consider those records unreliable because ocean observation systems were incomplete at the time.
By another key measure — one that accounts for the number of storms, their intensity and their duration — Atlantic hurricane activity has also fallen to its lowest level since 1950, said Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach. Atlantic storm activity is running at only 7% of what is normal for this point in the season.
Experts cautioned that residents should not drop their guard. A single storm can still bring catastrophe, even in an El Niño year. Several pointed to 1992, a season that started late before Hurricane Andrew struck with devastating force.
El Niño creates conditions that suppress storms
“It’s really staggering, just how inhospitable the Atlantic is to anything that could form a tropical cyclone right now,” said Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric science professor at the University at Albany. “Anything that tries to form is just getting this triple whammy” of winds that decapitate a storm, dry air that deprives it of fuel and sinking air that effectively stomps it down.
Those three hostile ingredients are classic effects of El Niño, the temporary natural warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific that alters weather patterns and raises temperatures around the world, five experts told The Associated Press.
“It’s just hammering the Atlantic. It’s just impressive,” Klotzbach said. “We haven’t even had anything really even close to a hurricane.”
The most significant El Niño influence on the Atlantic is record-strength wind shear. That occurs when strong easterly winds strike a developing system near the surface while powerful westerly winds blow in the opposite direction higher in the atmosphere. Together, the conflicting winds can “tear apart” a storm, Corbosiero said.
In the area between Africa and the Caribbean where the strongest storms normally form and head west, that wind shear is about 45 mph (74 kph) more than what a tropical cyclone can withstand, Corbosiero said. That’s an unheard of level, she said.
“Their heads are cut off before they even have a chance,” said University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy.
Keep an eye on the Gulf
The one area where wind shear hasn’t been high has been the Gulf of Mexico and those storms tend to really get going later in the season, so there could still be some strong ones coming to that region, Corbosiero and others warned.
READ MORE: New Car Safety Tech Could Wrongly Report Drivers to Police
Along with the dry air that starves the storm, African dust is choking it and there are fewer “seeds” of stormy weather that could develop, all classic El Nino signs, the experts said. And in the Atlantic, high pressure is pushing the air downward, which also hinders storms from forming, they said.
This is all despite warm waters — the world’s oceans have been record hot for 100 days — that normally feed storms. It shows the power of El Nino to overcome that, Klotzbach said.
The trouble is the Atlantic waters, while warm, haven’t warmed up nearly as quickly as the atmosphere above, which got hotter quickly as part of El Nino, said Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel. His research found what matters more than just the water temperature is the difference in temperature between the air and the water; because hurricanes are powered by the flow of heat from the ocean to the air, the higher that is, the less storm activity there will be.
The waters of the Atlantic are a few months behind the atmosphere in feeling the El Nino effect. But next year, as the El Nino winds down and cools closer to normal, the warm water will persist, which will increase the odds for next season to be extra busy, Emanuel said.
The opposite issue in the Pacific
Just as El Nino traditionally dampens Atlantic hurricane season, it tends to rev up tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific, with moist air and little wind shear. And so far this year, storm activity in the eastern Pacific is nearly double normal, with hurricanes lasting much longer than usual. In the central Pacific, activity is about 40% more than normal.
“It’s just a party out there, one right after the other in the eastern Pacific,” Klotzbach said.
While the Atlantic has had only five small tropical storms, there have been 16 named storms in the eastern Pacific and 20 in the central Pacific.
Hawaii has been hit twice. El Nino tends to push storms farther west than other years, Corbosiero said.
Because scientists have long known about El Nino’s effects on storm activity in both oceans, forecasters months ago predicted a slow Atlantic hurricane season.
“I don’t think anyone really foresaw it being this quiet,” McNoldy said. “This is quite remarkable.”
___
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.