You can thank El Niño for this year's record-slow Atlantic hurricane season: Here's why

The Atlantic is experiencing a record-slow hurricane season this year thanks to an especially strong El Niño. 

Mid-September is considered peak hurricane season, according to the National Hurricane Center, but there have been zero hurricanes in the Atlantic thus far. On Saturday, 2026 set a record for the longest a season has begun without a storm that has reached winds of 74 mph to qualify as a hurricane — at least in the satellite era. Here’s why: 

El Niño’s impact on hurricane season

Big picture view:

Experts say this year’s enormous El Niño has been crushing storms before they get going. Kristen Corbosiero, a University at Albany atmospheric science professor, told The Associated Press that storms are being met with a "triple whammy" of winds that decapitate a storm, dry air that starves it and downward pushing winds that basically smother it.

Those three factors are typical impacts of El Niño, the natural and temporary warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific that warps and warms weather worldwide. 

What they're saying:

"It’s really staggering, just how inhospitable the Atlantic is to anything that could form a tropical cyclone right now," Corbosiero said. 

The biggest El Niño effect in the Atlantic is record-strong wind shear, which is when strong easterly winds hit a storm system at low levels while strong westerly winds push it the other way at upper altitudes. The result is that they "tear apart" the storm, Corbosiero said.

"It’s just hammering the Atlantic. It’s just impressive," Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach said. "We haven’t even had anything really even close to a hurricane."

By the numbers:

Only five relatively weak and brief tropical storms have formed this season, bringing storm activity in the Atlantic to only 7% of normal for this time of year.

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Dig deeper:

Just as El Niño traditionally hampers the Atlantic hurricane season, it tends to increase tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific. 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. Hawaii has been hit twice.

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Don’t let your guard down

Why you should care:

Still, experts say people need to remember that it only takes one storm to cause widespread devastation. They recalled 1992’s hurricane season, which started slow but ended with a deadly and destructive Hurricane Andrew. 

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Andrew struck from the Gulf of Mexico, the one area where scientists say the wind shear hasn’t been as high this year. Storms there tend to really get going later in the season, so there could still be some strong ones coming to that region.

Looking Ahead:

The waters of the Atlantic are a few months behind the atmosphere in feeling the El Niño effect. But next year, as the El Niño winds down and cools closer to normal, the warm water will persist, which will increase the odds for next season to be extra busy, experts say. 

Hurricanes