An exceptionally powerful El Niño has suppressed Atlantic storms during what should be the busiest period of the season — but meteorologists warn that one late hurricane could change everything.
MIAMI — In South Florida, September usually brings a familiar ritual. People watch tropical waves roll west from Africa, check forecast cones and quietly calculate whether the shutters need to come out of storage.
In 2026, the Atlantic has instead produced something meteorologists rarely see — almost nothing.
No Atlantic hurricane has formed this season. The basin has now gone longer without one than in any year of the satellite era, passing the previous record of September 11, set in both 2002 and 2013. Only five relatively weak tropical storms have developed: Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly and Edouard.
Overall activity is running at roughly 7% of normal for this point in the season. Accumulated Cyclone Energy, the standard measure of how much storm activity a season produces, sits at a record low of 4.4. That is more than 90% below normal for mid-September in records going back to 1950.
A Meteorological Triple Whammy
The primary explanation is an exceptionally strong El Niño.
El Niño describes periodic warming in parts of the equatorial Pacific that reorganizes atmospheric circulation around the planet. In the Atlantic, it frequently produces conditions hostile to hurricanes. This year those conditions have been extreme, with equatorial Pacific temperatures running about 3 degrees Celsius above average.
Developing systems face three obstacles at once. Powerful upper-level winds decapitate a storm. Dry air starves it. Sinking air smothers the thunderstorms a tropical cyclone needs in order to organize.
Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric scientist at the University at Albany, put the result plainly.
“It’s really staggering, just how inhospitable the Atlantic is to anything that could form a tropical cyclone right now,” she said.
Why Florida Shouldn’t Relax
For Florida residents, the absence of hurricanes during the traditional peak of the season can feel like an unexpected reprieve.
But hurricane history punishes complacency.
Meteorologists have pointed repeatedly to 1992. That season began quietly before Hurricane Andrew exploded into a Category 5 storm and devastated southern Miami-Dade County, becoming one of the defining natural disasters in modern Florida history.
The comparison does not mean another Andrew is imminent. It means seasonal totals are an imperfect measure of individual risk.
A year with 20 hurricanes that stay over the ocean can be less destructive to the United States than a season with one hurricane that strikes a densely populated coastline.
Forecasters are not writing the season off either. Jeff Masters, the hurricane scientist and Weather Underground co-founder, puts the odds of at least one Atlantic hurricane this year at around 80%, noting that September and October can still produce dangerous storms.
Watch the Gulf
There is another reason Florida should remain attentive: the Gulf of Mexico.
Wind shear has been extraordinarily hostile across important Atlantic development zones. In the Gulf, however, conditions have been less suppressive. Gulf storms also tend to develop and intensify later in the season, leaving open the possibility of significant activity before the season officially ends on Nov. 30.
The quiet Atlantic is even more remarkable because ocean temperatures remain extremely warm.
Normally, warm seawater provides the energy that powers tropical cyclones. But hurricane formation depends on more than sea-surface temperature alone. Atmospheric structure, moisture and the temperature difference between the ocean and the air above it all matter.
This year, El Niño’s atmospheric effects have been powerful enough to overwhelm the Atlantic’s abundant ocean heat.
The Pacific Tells the Opposite Story
By mid-September the eastern Pacific had recorded 16 named storms, roughly double the eight typical by this date. Six became hurricanes, four of them major systems of Category 3 or stronger.
The contrast illustrates why climate and weather should not be confused.
Long-term warming can increase the energy and moisture available to storms. Meanwhile shorter-term natural cycles such as El Niño dramatically redistribute where and when tropical cyclones actually develop.
For Miami, the immediate lesson is less complicated.
Keep the hurricane plan. Keep supplies available. And keep watching the Gulf.
South Florida has lived through enough storms to understand that a quiet season is not the same thing as a safe season.
In hurricane country, the number that ultimately matters most is not how many storms form.
It is whether one reaches you.
