By Joel Abbott
It’s looking like a bad year for the climate-change departments in the media!
Translation: It’s quiet out there.
Here’s a chart showing the years with the most and least hurricane activity:
From my home in the magical northern woods of Michigan, “hurricane” is a foreign concept.
But every year, I watch the South go berserk this time of year over two things: college football and storm preparations.
This year, we might not have very many hurricanes to write about!
At least, no hurricanes in the Atlantic…
There are currently THREE hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean: Lowell, Karina, and Marie. The warming El Niño trend in the Pacific is increasing storm activity there while the Atlantic remains calm.
South Texas just got hit with a tropical storm. Listening to the local media, you’d have thought it was the second coming of Katrina.
A short trip from “If it bleeds, it leads” to “Make it bleed.”
How hard could it be to include the E.-Pacific?
neo-Norberto is the Season’s fourteenth-(#14!, letter N)-named T.S., Hawai–i Bound.
Nascent #15 (O) and then #16 (P) (Polo, Marco) are starting their spin-up stages.
One of these is bound to creep up the Gulf of California (Mar Cortés) into Sonora & the Mogollon-Country of Arizona.
One of these (Marco POLO?) is bound to cross the Sandwich Isles, the Date-Line, so to …
… catch the Japanese Current up into Aleutia and into the Bay of Alaska / Anchorage-AK.
———
Then, ~ +30-days from now, or by Columbus Day, 12th-of-October, may the 1954-redux (72 yrs of Good Luck) of {Carol+Edna} wash the sister-souls of Carolinas out to Sea; may coastal Long-Island / New England drown in the N.-Atlantic’s Fury.
All the way to the South Shore of Greenland, let it sweep CDN-Carney back to the UK, in order to enjoy his Streets-of-Blood British Blowout.
Errrr . . . Hawaii is located in the central Pacific Ocean, not the eastern Pacific.
You seem overly concerned with geographic facts. 😉
I’m not “overly concerned”, just pointing out a simple fact.
However, you seemed overly concerned about people pointing out geographic facts. 🙂
Hey! At least it is in the Pacific – until Donald renames it…
The east Pacific is not the Atlantic.
Pacific is not Atlantic, moron.
Because the E. Atlantic is ground zero for Trans-Reality Activists.
The Atlantic result was predicted, but not to this extent. NOAA provides the simple explanation.
El Niño increases Caribbean and North Atlantic vertical wind shear, preventing hurricanes from organizing from tropical thunderstorms. A stronger El Niño will do this more strongly.
A second significant contributing factor was the much larger than normal amount of Saharan dust crossing the Atlantic this past summer, which was not predicted. That dust travels in drier Saharan origin lower altitude air volume and lessens the rate of surface water warming—both factors suppressing more than normal the thunderstorm formation that is a necessary hurricane precursor.
Didn’t NOAA predict near normal hurricane #s for this season?
No.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/05/21/good-news-noaa-predicts-a-below-normal-2026-atlantic-hurricane-season/
When a predictor has no clue, just predict “near normal”. 🙂
Yep, just like rain. 50% chance, it rains I win, it doesn’t rain I win!
The dust also intercepts solar radiation, warming upper layers.
This is the strongest effect, I think.
Warm air aloft blocks convection, suppresses clouds.
There is even now massive amounts of dust coming across the Atlantic.
In addition, there has been an Atlantic Nina with cooler than usual water in the MDR (Main Development Region for hurricanes. That together with the Pacific El Nino led CSU to predict a quiet Atlantic season.
Here is August description of hurricane factors.
WUWT contributors really aren’t up on their climate science knowledge, are they? The BBC are already on this and have published an article on their website citing the strong El Nino as the reason for diminished hurricane activity!
I am not a climate scientist myself so can’t really comment, but I am assuming this this is BBC BS. Can anyone confirm or deny?
I don’t think that anyone claims that BBC lies all the time and on the same scale as co2 is warming the planet –
but maybe I’m wrong and the (Hurricane-Activities will increase as result of AGW) – BBC used this article for another global warming spin “AGW caused Super El Nino made Hurricane go extinct”
Just as the (Hurricane-Activities will increase as result of AGW) – Washington Pest had to admitt a “Hurricane drought – and why it is a bad thing(never forget a negative spin, no matter how pervert it is)
just after they predicted in 2015 “Hurricanes unlike anything you have ever seen before”(the power of a millionth co2 and a billionth methane).
So what’s the point of your comment?
Adjusting propaganda alongside obvious realities is standard procedure.
And whatever happend to Mann’s bold storm predictions in this context.
The first part re. the BBC was just tongue-in-cheek as I hate that they immediately jump on anything climate related which may be construed as positive. The second was a genuine query regarding the influence of El Nino on hurricane activity.
The BS is blaming El Niño on ‘climate change’
In the end, someone – maybe Reform party – is going to turn round and say ‘You know what, we have spent trillions on ‘renewable’ energy, heat pumps and electric cars and its made absolutely no difference to climate. Why didn’t we spend it on the NHS instead?
The moment that meme gets started there is no turning back.
It short circuits the global warming argument. It doesn’t matter if its real, man made, or not, it is what it is and we will have to put up or shut up.
Rud (see above) pointed out the strong El Nino cause above and beat your stupid comment by almost an hour.
?
The timestamp on the BBC article was about 5 hours before this WUWT post appeared. A rare example of the BBC writing a reasonable article about weather.
I guess I worded my comment badly, it was sarcasm aimed at the BBC who constantly refute anything directly or indirectly which may contradict their AGW obsession.
Never under-estimate the ability of some WUWT commenters to jump to the wrong conclusion.
El Nino has long been known to supress Atlantic tropical cyclones, just as la nina has long been known to enhance them.
No one is surprised.
rhexenor,
You admit to not knowing if the BBC is truthful or not, but at the same time you assert WUWT contributors (NOT commenters, but contributors, as in the authors of articles) aren’t “up on their climate science knowledge”.
Year, r–i—g–h–t. Got it!
You obviously didn’t see my other comment saying it was poorly put sarcasm.
You could have made the point and initiated an interesting conversation had you not led with a disparaging comment.
“There have been no hurricanes in the Atlantic”
There ya go- proves there’s climate change! /s
This is climate change we can live with.
“This is climate change we can live with.”
Maybe, maybe not.
Hurricanes produce massive amounts of clouds across the diameter(s) of their storm systems as they grow and move, thereby significantly increasing the albedo over their area and thus reducing the net solar energy absorbed by Earth. Is that good or bad?
Also,hurricanes typically produce heavy rainfalls over the areas underlying the cloud systems . . . that is the cycling of evaporated saltwater into condensed freshwater on an equally massive scale. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Wow, that’s a stretch. 🙂
You mean me asking questions? 🙁
You’re telling us it’s bad that there’s no hurricanes? Yes, that’s a stretch.
Good grief! I clearly posted:
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Reading comprehension 101. And in this case, it’s three strikes and you’re out. 🙂
I appreciate that coming from someone like you. 🙂
Just giving you feedback . . . take it or leave it. 🙂 🙂
Not having a hurricane reduce communities to rubble is a good thing. The other effects you cite are likely negligible over the short term.
Do you know what percentage of hurricanes make landfall?
Good questions👍
This result will have appeared in someone’s model somewhere, so it not only proves climate change, but also the model!
Let’s not overlook NOAA’s stated—with announced 70% confidence—forecast for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season:
— a total of 8-14 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher),
— of those, 3-6 forecast to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), and
— of those, 1-3 to be major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5 with winds of 111 mph or higher).
And look at the 2:1 to 3:1 ranges of those predictions . . . wide enough, as the saying goes, “to drive a truck through”.
These predictions vis-a-vis current absence of any hurricane yet at more than halfway through the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. Hah!
And this situation despite NOAA spending more that $200 million so far since 2022 for its “upgraded” Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System (WCOSS) centers.
However, the “hit-or-miss” evidence seen to date in NOAA hurricane forecasts, comparing their predictions pre-2022 to those post-2022, show that NOAA would have been just fine forecasting with a $1,000 (or less expensive) laptop computer running an Excel spreadsheet. /sarc
So far 5 named Atlantic Tropical storms: Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly and Edouard.
Funny. It used to be only hurricanes got names. Now tropical storms, winter blizzards, thunderstorms. So far tornados are not named, but wait for it.
“The warming El Niño trend in the Pacific is increasing storm activity there while the Atlantic remains calm.”
Darn CO2 sure does act in mysterious ways.
Does anyone expect the mainstream media to report on the absence of violent storms? But just let some minor one hit and they’ll be telling us it’s another example of the type of event we can expect more often and with increasing intensity. So get off fossil fuels and let’s save the planet before it’s too late.
It’s a field day for insurance companies and the doom alarmist promoting them.
Now you done jinxed it! Way to go. 😉