The 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season arrives | Tracking the Tropics
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What is the forecast for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season and how many storms are expected?
Live from our hurricane headquarters, with real-time analysis from some of the nation's top meteorologists, this is Tracking the Tropics, powered by Bose Generators.
Welcome to the very first episode of the 2026 Tracking the Tropics season from the WFLA Stream Center. I'm meteorologist Rebecca Berry. I want to bring in the rest of the Tracking the Tropics team. We've got meteorologist Juliana Mejia, and new to the team this year, but not new to us, is meteorologist Justin Mosley. Welcome, guys. Thank you for having us. Happy uh first day of hurricane season. Happy first day of hurricane season. We're hoping it's a quiet one. and here to break down the details on why it might be a quiet one. Meteorologist Juliana Mejia has your season forecast.
I didn't want to leave anybody in suspense. That's why uh I played this out right away. So no tropical developments expected for the next few days here as uh we kick things off with a quiet start and as we said you're likely to be the theme throughout the season and hoping to keep that the case locally here closer to home as well. So there's a look at the Atlantic basin now very different for the Pacific. Now technically the Pacific, uh Eastern Pacific's hurricane season does Start May 15th, but already off to quite the active start with two areas of potential tropical development uh right now, with the one having a high end chance of at least becoming a tropical depression. Uh, and that's because not only here are we talking about El Nino for the benefits that it provides the Atlantic, uh, but that does actually have a bit of a reverse effect for the Pacific.
Of course, though, we're still in that El Nino watch. We'll Talk about that here in a little bit, but wanted to break down the expectation for the season because we've been talking about it, but this kind of lays it out nicely. in terms of uh the forecast versus the average, now expecting a below average season all around from the b both uh NOAA as well as CSU, and that is because of the expectation of a very strong El Nino. But Our favorite thing to talk about and uh everybody's favorite thing to talk about typically throughout hurricane season is Sahara Dust off to a little bit of an early start already here across the Atlantic, kind of rolling through and actually potentially gonna kind of be in the mix here locally throughout the week ahead.
Very light concentrations, but this always works in our favor all throughout hurricane season. This is a little bit early because typically we see Sahara Dust uh in those great Greater concentrations start to roll across the Atlantic basin and reach this far west throughout June and then leading into those kind of mid-late summer months. So absolutely no problem with this for us here in Florida and uh across the western Atlantic. We do not mind at all to see Sahara dust off to a little bit of an early start. But here's a look at the average tropical activity that uh we'll show this from time and time again. You know, I was talking here on our local newscast this morning about how maybe folks are new to uh tropical weather and are moving to we've got a lot of snowbirds that maybe make this a permanent home for them living here in Florida and you might not be familiar with how the tropic season typically plays out.
Usually we start off pretty quiet, so it's not unusual to not have any activity right now on day one. We usually are looking to late August into early and mid-September and then even into portions there of October for the bulk of the activity of tropic season, hurricane season, September 10th marking the peak of hurricane season because of on average that being the greatest activity. Now when we're talking about El Nina. This has been all the chatter here for some time as, you know, climate experts in the National H uh Hurricane Center well as well, reflecting this in uh NOAA and CSU's forecasts is because of the expectation of not only an El Nino climate pattern but a particularly strong El Nino pattern.
And what that means is, um, if you're unfamiliar with ENSO, is the El Niño La Niña climate oscillation.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the forecast for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season and how many storms are expected?
0:00–7:02
2
How does a strong El Niño influence Atlantic storm development and wind shear?
7:02–12:49
3
What role does Sahara dust play in this season’s tropical activity?
12:49–17:38
4
How are inland tropical‑storm watches and warnings being visualized on the new cone of uncertainty?
17:38–22:50
5
What new AI models is the National Hurricane Center using and how are they improving forecasts?
22:50–27:25
6
Which forecast models do meteorologists rely on most during the season?
27:25–28:20
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Tracking the Tropics: Hurricane Season Podcast
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