2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season

[TheDreamTraveler]

2 hours ago, Stormchaserchuck1 said:

Well, 8 named storms and it's still September.. not bad. Shear in the Atlantic has been record high this season. 

I think the old days of 9NS/yr average, pre-1995, may be done. 

8 named storms looks good on paper until you look at how abysmal the ACE is

[vortex95]

1 hour ago, TheDreamTraveler said:

8 named storms looks good on paper until you look at how abysmal the ACE is

The 1961-1990 avg is 10.5 NS per year.  The current 30 yr avg 1991-2020 is 14.5.  In last 10,  is it 18.

Lots of factors.

1) 1970-1994 was an unfavorable phase of the AMO for Atlantic TCs.  Since 1995, it has been favorable.  2) Many more short-lived TS that used to be not declared or missed now get a name and as late as 1994, an off-season HU was not counted/included.  3) Prior to about 2000, NHC rarely declared/included ST storms. Since that time, they declare them routinely.

Also, from 1989 to 1994, there was only one operational GOES satellite for the U.S. and it was positioned at 98W  So this meant no real coverage for the eastern Atlantic.  Meteosat and polar imagery were available for this part of the Atlantic, but it was not received in real-time for hurricane ops.

Another thing that changed is when the next generation GOES became available by 1995, not only did we have two GOES satellite again for better coverage, but also image resolution and frequency from these new satellites increased.  And when we got to the next "next" generation of GOES satellites, launched in 2017, the resolution of imagery increased again and the amount of data per hour went up by more than an order of magnitude.  For instance, we get a full disk every 10 min now.  Prior, it was only every 3 hr.  A CONUS every 5 min,  It was only every 30 min prior. And we went from 5 satellite channels to 16.  This all greatly enhanced our capabilities to track and diagnose TCs in real-time.

Purely from a standards/practices and technological POV, you can't compare on a level playing field prior decades to the last 3 or so when it comes to NS counts.  And this applies for the entire globe.

A true long-term avg, accounting for AMO cycles, needs to be 50-70 years of high quality data.

[bigtenfan]

8 named storms looks good on paper until you look at how abysmal the ACE is

As a S Florida resident I will take 8 storms like this every hurricane season.


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[wdrag]

On 9/21/2026 at 2:38 PM, rclab said:

Unlike the responses from well versed forum members, I can only offer that I am very happy to see a post from you. Stay well and please if possible visit again. As always …. 

Well... it's done (not a subtropical storm but...big moderate, spotty major impacts with 2-8" of Rain I95 corridor, two surges of power outages, at least moderate CF and at least moderate dune damage).

 

I sure hope everyone agrees it was VERY well modeled by the EPS/EC suite vs the United States GEFS back at least to 9/21..., a very good planner. Debris cleanup now. 

Will check back when we get some comparable headline extensive moderate or major impact coastal storms this winter.