It's the first week of August and legions of people aren't reflexively refreshing their screens to check the progress of a hurricane or tropical storm or studying the latest model predictions.
If that seems weird, it's because no other hurricane season has seen a slower start since 2009, according to Michael Lowry, a hurricane and storm surge expert with Local 10, a Miami television station.
The lack of activity is a welcome gift for many, especially those still in recovery after storms pummeled the Southeastern United States in recent years. But, even though the 2026 hurricane season is off to a slow start, that doesn't mean it can't still produce a lot of misery.
A few tropical weather models hint at a chance of storm activity in the Atlantic
beginning in mid-August, but generally hurricane scientists expect things to remain calm over the next couple of weeks. The long-term tropical outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center shows no activity in the Atlantic region through Aug. 26.
Meanwhile, Colorado State University’s regular August refresh to its forecast maintains its July prediction of a total of nine named storms, including four hurricanes. Of those four hurricanes, one is forecast to become a major Category 3 storm or higher.
That means forecasters expect seven more named storms through the end of hurricane season on Nov. 30.
So far in 2026, the National Hurricane Center has only assigned names to two tropical storms, Arthur and Bertha. Both formed in the Gulf, which can often be a wild card, even during an El Niño, USA TODAY previously reported.
When does hurricane season peak?
In an average hurricane season, which starts June 1, the third named storm typically arrives by Aug. 3 and the first hurricane arrives by Aug. 11. On Wednesday, Aug. 5, there wasn't a tropical storm in sight.
A dearth of storms doesn’t necessarily predict activity later in the season, Lowry wrote in his daily newsletter on Aug. 4. But the later it gets in August without storms, the more a lack of storms correlates to the season’s overall activity, he said.
The season generally peaks between mid-August and mid-October. Sept. 10 is considered its traditional peak.
In 2009, the first named storm formed on Aug. 11 and the season only produced 10 storms total, but most recent seasons have been far busier. By this time in 2024 and 2025, four named storms had formed in the Atlantic. In 2020, nine named storms formed by Aug. 1, and the season saw a rare 30 named storms.
Two key factors hurricane scientists are watching – El Niño and water temperatures across the tropical Atlantic – are showing signals that favor less tropical activity.
While warmer-than-normal water temperatures can be seen via satellite sprawling across the El NIño region of the Pacific, pockets of blue indicating cooler-than-normal waters can be seen across the Atlantic. A particularly large pool of cooler water stretches eastward from the Windward Islands that fringe the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea.
In the surrounding oceans, waters are slightly cool in the tropical East Atlantic, fairly neutral in the Caribbean and slightly warm in the Gulf of Mexico, but nothing attention-grabbing, said Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate in the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science at the University of Miami.
El Niño influence grows
"We are extremely confident that we will have a strong El Niño for the peak of hurricane season," the Colorado State team states in its update. "We are forecasting a well below-average probability for major hurricane landfalls along the continental United States coastline and in the Caribbean." The team added in a caveat that "it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season."
El Niño, a cyclical pattern that brings warmer than normal water to the East and Central Pacific, tends to create hostile winds over a swath of the Atlantic referred to as the main hurricane development region, extending from Central America over to the west coast of Africa. The wind shear it creates typically begins in the western portion of the region and spreads eastward as El Niño intensifies. It also brings changes in atmospheric circulation that tend to produce more sinking air that inhibits hurricane development.
So far, we're still in the early stages of El Niño's influence, McNoldy said.
At the moment, wind shear in the Caribbean is stronger than average, “so that portion of the Atlantic is shut down for the foreseeable future," he said. “As time goes by and (El Niño) gets stronger, the impacts across the Atlantic will become more noticeable, primarily in the deep tropics."
A tropical wave or two may roll off Africa before mid-August, and a few of the models are trying to spin up a tropical cyclone, Andy Hazelton, an associate scientist at the University of Miami, said in an X post on Aug. 3. "But the background still looks pretty hostile, so it will be an uphill battle."
"I'm sure we'll get another few storms at some point, but all signs continue [to] point to this being the quietest Atlantic season since 2015, and quite possibly on par with 2013 and some of the other historically quiet seasons," Hazelton said.
Given the way this El Niño is shaping up to be strong and linger into next year, McNoldy said it’s likely these impacts could have some effects on the 2027 hurricane season as well.
What do federal forecasters predict for the 2026 hurricane season?
At the beginning of the season, NOAA predicted eight to 14 named storms, with winds of 39 mph or higher, with three to six becoming hurricanes, including one to three major hurricanes. NOAA has a 70% confidence in these ranges. An average season has 14 named storms with seven hurricanes, including three major hurricanes.
What about the eastern Pacific hurricane season?
If you want to compare the Pacific storm activity to the Atlantic's, pull up Google's DeepMind tropical model and compare the number of dots that appear. Over the next couple of weeks, a volley of blue dots race across the map in the Pacific, while only the occasional dot appears in the Atlantic.
El Niño tends to support tropical activity in the Pacific, and this year has been no exception. As of Aug. 5, the Pacific had produced seven named storms, five tropical storms and two hurricanes.
Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, has written about hurricanes, tornadoes and violent weather for more than 30 years. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
Contributing: Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hurricane forecast still says more storms are coming in update
