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season preview

Every year around this point, seasonal hurricane outlooks generate headlines that compress a genuinely nuanced statistical exercise into a single number: an above-average, average or below-average season. The hurricane season 2026 forecasts issued by the major meteorological agencies are worth taking seriously, but understanding what they can and cannot tell a coastal community matters more than the headline classification itself.

  • Warmer than average sea surface temperatures in the main development region generally support more storm formation and higher potential intensity.
  • The presence of La Niña conditions tends to reduce wind shear over the Atlantic, removing a factor that would otherwise disrupt storm organisation.
  • Saharan dust outbreaks can suppress early-season activity by drying the atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic, an effect that is more predictable week to week than season to season.
  • None of these factors determine landfall location, intensity at landfall, or timing — only the general favourability of conditions for storms to form somewhere in the basin.

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