Early preparation essential to staying safe all season
Forecasters with NOAA’s National Weather Service are predicting a below-normal hurricane season for the Atlantic basin this year. NOAA’s outlook for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs June 1 to November 30, predicts a 35% chance of a near-normal season, a 10% chance of an above-normal season, and a 55% chance of a below-normal season.
The agency is forecasting a total of 8-14 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher). Of those, 3-6 are forecast to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 1-3 major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5 with winds of 111 mph or higher). NOAA has a 70% confidence in these ranges. An average season has 14 named storms with seven hurricanes, including three major hurricanes.
A summary infographic showing hurricane season probability and numbers of named storms predicted from NOAA’s 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook. (Image credit: NOAA)
“With the most advanced forecast modeling and hurricane tracking technologies, NOAA and the National Weather Service are prepared to deliver real-time storm forecasts and warnings,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “Our experts are integrating cutting-edge tools to ensure communities in the path of storms receive the earliest, most accurate information possible.”
“NOAA’s rapid integration of advanced technology, including AI-based weather models, drones, and next-generation satellite data will deliver actionable science to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of the American people,” said NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs, Ph.D. “These new capabilities, combined with the unmatched expertise of our National Weather Service forecasters, will produce the most accurate forecasts possible to protect communities in harm’s way.”
Key factors driving NOAA’s forecast
The Atlantic season is expected to be below-normal due to competing factors. El Niño is expected to develop and intensify during the hurricane season, while ocean temperatures in the Atlantic are expected to be slightly warmer than normal and trade winds are likely weaker than average. El Niño conditions tend to support less tropical storms and hurricanes, while warmer ocean temperatures and low winds support a more active year.
“Although El Niño’s impact in the Atlantic Basin can often suppress hurricane development, there is still uncertainty in how each season will unfold,” said NOAA’s National Weather Service Director Ken Graham. “That is why it’s essential to review your hurricane preparedness plan now. It only takes one storm to make for a very bad season.”
NOAA’s outlook is for overall seasonal activity based on large-scale weather and climate patterns. It does not indicate where or when any storms may affect land as that is determined by short-term and variable weather patterns is not a landfall forecast.
“Preparing now for hurricane season- and not waiting for a storm to threaten – is essential for staying ahead of any storm. Visit weather.gov/safety and Ready.gov for important preparedness information,” added Graham.
A summary graphic showing an alphabetical list of the 2026 Atlantic tropical cyclone names as selected by the World Meteorological Organization: Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna, Isaias, Josephine, Kyle, Leah, Marco, Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky, and Wilfred. The official start of the Atlantic hurricane season is June 1 and runs through November 30. (Image credit: NOAA)
New and enhanced communication products this season
- NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (NHC) will implement an improved version of the tropical cyclone forecast cone graphic that will now include tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings for inland areas for the continental United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
- NHC will begin testing an experimental version of the tropical cyclone track forecast cone that will capture a greater range of possibilities for the track of the storm by incorporating uncertainties for both direction of movement and timing.
- NHC will provide new products and services for the Hawaiian Islands to include storm surge watches and warnings, and a peak storm surge graphic. These will be publicly available for the main Hawaiian Islands on hurricanes.gov.
Advancements to hurricane analysis and forecasts
- NOAA, in collaboration with the Unified Forecast System community, is testing an experimental high-resolution Seasonal Forecast System that utilizes the latest modeling technology and new methods to assess the evolution of the global ocean-atmosphere system. The system is helping forecasters better simulate tropical storms and hurricanes, and more effectively predict the number of hurricanes and major hurricanes.
- NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) is using machine learning to quality-control data collected from tail Doppler radar — a specialized radar system mounted on the back of NOAA’s “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft. This new method gathers more than 25% more meteorological data than the current method and leads to more high-quality data to support structure and wind analysis by forecasters.
Innovative technologies for this year
- NOAA’s Office of Water Prediction high-resolution Flood Inundation Mapping (FIM) services provide emergency managers visualizations of those streets and neighborhoods likely to go underwater. FIM covers 60% of the U.S. population and will expand to nearly 100% by late September 2026.
- For the first time, data from small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUAS) will be integrated into NOAA’s hurricane forecast model during the 2026 hurricane season. Scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) and NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) determined that incorporating sUAS data into NOAA’s Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS) can improve hurricane intensity forecast accuracy by 10%.
- NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center launched the experimental Urban Rain Rate Dashboard, a customizable, real-time tool that shows the probability of extreme rainfall a week in advance for more than 60 U.S. cities.
NOAA also issued seasonal hurricane outlooks for the eastern Pacific and central Pacific hurricane basins, with both anticipated to have active seasons. The 2026 Atlantic seasonal outlook will be updated in early August, ahead of the historical peak of the season, which typically extends from mid-September through October.
Contact
National Weather Service Public Affairs, nws.pa@noaa.gov
What is NOAA’s track record when calling a below normal hurricane season? They have been accused of overestimating storm numbers in the past.
I don’t remember NOAA ever predicting a below normal hurricane season. Once or twice they predicted a near normal season. Almost always, they predict above normal seasons, the Lake Wobegon effect.
Uh oh.
If there ends up being more than they predict…AGW becomes a proven hypothesis in the media…./s
A generic article on that specific subject appeared on WUWT just over a week ago.
Direct URL : https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/05/13/scorecard-how-well-does-noaas-hurricane-outlook-actually-perform-26-years-of-forecasts-vs-reality/
That article summarised NOAA’s “direction call” predictions as follows :
“The direction call: Even when the exact numbers miss, NOAA generally gets the character of the season right, calling above-normal, near-normal, or below-normal correctly most of the time. That directional skill has improved over the 25-year period.”
The last “below normal (/ average)” call was for 2015.
In April/May they estimated 6-11 named storms and 3-6 hurricanes. The final numbers were 11 and 4 respectively, making it an “On target” year.
A copy of the table for the years 2000 to 2025 from that article (if I’ve copied the URL correctly and the rendering engine doesn’t crash …).
I don’t see anywhere in that table what normal is, that is the average of the previous 30 seasons before the prediction.
https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/SeasonalVerification.html
Table with NOAA, CSU, and TSR seasonal forecasts going back to 2000
My model show a different forecast: 33% above normal, 33% normal, 33% below normal, and 1% apocalyptic extinction. My model is more sophisticated than theirs, it involves dice.
ROTFL!!!
And now…..
In 12 months time when they look back at a ‘NORMAL’ year. They’ll be able to present a press release that reads that the actual last 12 months EXCEEDED their expectations.
The sky is falling.
So basically, it is between 4 and 9.
Which is pretty much what it usually is per the article here a few days ago.
But NOAA can have a good chance of saying it is “worse than we feared”
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Elsewhere today in the UK press we have the great El Nino disaster of 2026 looming:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2208393/scientists-warn-2026-disaster-echoing-1877-catastrophe-killed-50m
Yes. 50 million will be killed. Aren’t ya sick of it?
As Mike of Mike’s Weather Page points out, so what if it’s a below average season, all it takes is one land falling hurricane to ruin everyone’s day.
Oh, crap…better start getting prepared now.
Seems like most years for the past two decades they’ve been predicting “higher than normal” hurricane seasons and have been wrong consistently.
This year they’re predicting “lower than normal” so stand by to get hammered.
From the lead-in graphic to (= first graphic embedded in) the above article:
— Named storms 8-14 . . . that’s an average of 11 ± 27%
— Hurricanes 3-6 . . . that’s an average of 5 ± 33%
— Major hurricanes 1-3 . . . that’s an average of 2 ± 33%
I’ve posted this before (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/05/13/scorecard-how-well-does-noaas-hurricane-outlook-actually-perform-26-years-of-forecasts-vs-reality/ ), but it bears repeating:
NOAA implemented their latest, major operational high-performance computing (HPC) system in June 2022. The system tripled NOAA computing capacity by addition of two, identical-twin supercomputers, named “Dogwood” and “Cactus”, each operating at 12 petaflops.
For reference, a petaflop is one thousand trillion, or one quadrillion, floating-point operations per second . . . a high-end consumer gaming computer with top-tier hardware can achieve something like 0.1 to 0.2 petaflops in 32-bit floating-point performance.
The two supercomputers, part of the Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System (WCOSS), were delivered under a contract with General Dynamics Information Technology valued at approximately $150 million for initial cost to build, house, and support the machines and having potential total contract ceiling of $505 million over 10 years for operational support costs and further upgrades.
In August 2023, the supercomputers were upgraded to operate at a speed of 14.5 petaflops each, at a cost of $100 million in federal funding. This investment supported the installation of the “Rhea” supercomputer, adding 8 petaflops to NOAA’s capacity, and bringing total capacity from 35 to 43 petaflops.
In September 2024, NOAA announced a further $99 million upgrade for “Rhea”, adding 22 petaflops to bring combined WCROSS speed to a total of 65 petaflops.
In addition, NOAA is integrating a separate HPC system “Ursa” that will bring the grand total of R&D HPC to approximately 73 petaflops. (ref: https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/biden-harris-administration-invests-100-million-in-new-high-performance-computer-system )
UPDATE to previous post: However, the
hit-or-miss statisticsthe prediction uncertainties in the above article,comparing NOAA predictions pre-2022 to those post-2022,show that NOAA would have been fine just using a $1,000 (or less expensive) laptop computer running an Excel spreadsheet./sarc (then and now)
Let’s hope they are right.
Great… that means we’re gonna get hammered this year because NOAA is never right. Also not looking forward to another Fay since the last one dropped almost two feet of rain on my place!
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra