21 May 2026
What a subdued 2026 hurricane season means for businesses and communities
Forecast for the 2026 hurricane season
By Timothy Hall
Highlights
The S&P Global Climate Center of Excellence forecasts below-average hurricane activity in the North Atlantic, Caribbean, and the US and Mexican Gulf Coasts for the upcoming 2026 season. Our forecasts include the overall number of hurricanes as well as local probabilities of hurricanes passing nearby.
The driving climate factors in the forecast are El Niño/La Niña and sea surface temperatures in the subtropical North Atlantic. El Niño/La Niña is currently forecast in a strong El Niño state July to September, which suppresses North Atlantic hurricane activity, more than canceling the positive impact of warm forecast sea surface temperatures.
Despite the reduced forecast, it is still possible for intense hurricanes to form and impact coastal communities. In this report we provide details of the forecast, including occurrence probability maps.
Hurricanes: What’s at stake and who could be impacted
Powerful tropical cyclones — known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic and typhoons in the Pacific — are among the most deadly and destructive natural disasters on the planet. Understanding them can help protect lives, homes and businesses.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through the end of November, and for 2026, the seasonal hurricane model from the S&P Global Climate Center of Excellence forecasts a best estimate five hurricanes (5%-95% confidence 2-9), with two (5%-95% confidence 0-4) of them reaching major hurricane status.
Hurricane intensity is labeled on a range from Category 1 on the low end up to Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, and major hurricanes are defined as Category 3 and above.
The hazard forecast that follows is relevant for many stakeholders, from residents and municipalities to property owners, businesses, and energy production facilities along the US Gulf Coast, US East Coast, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Islands. The information is also relevant to insurers and investors with portfolios located in these regions. We forecast that these stakeholders will have reduced risk to property and infrastructure damage and financial loss in 2026 compared to long-term averages. However, it’s crucial to be aware that even with a reduced forecast, intense hurricanes can still impact coastal communities, causing severe damage.
To put some additional context around what’s at stake here, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office (NOAA) tallied 403 weather and climate disasters from 1980 through 2024 that each resulted in costs of $1 billion or more, with a total cumulative cost of more than $2.9 trillion. Of all those $1 billion-plus weather disasters, tropical cyclones/hurricanes caused the most damage, at more than $1.5 trillion total with an average cost of $23 billion per event. Hurricanes also caused the most deaths — more than 7,200 since 1980.
NOAA discontinued its billion-dollar disaster report in 2025 and Climate Central picked up the baton for gathering the data and publishing related research. Climate Central is a nonprofit made up of climate scientists and communicators, including some former NOAA staff.
Listen to an episode of S&P Global’s All Things Sustainable podcast about the latest report on billion-dollar US weather and climate disasters: The rise of billion-dollar US weather and climate disasters | S&P Global
Looking ahead: What we’re forecasting for 2026
In most regions of US and Caribbean coastlines, we forecast hurricane occurrence probabilities (passage of a hurricane within 50 km) to be lower than their long-term (1948-2022) mean values. Many sections of US and Caribbean coastline have probability of a hurricane impact (Category 1 and up) approximately 10%-50% lower than the long-term mean (1948-2022), and major hurricane impact (Category 3 and up) 20%-70% lower than the long-term mean. For example, the forecast best-estimate hurricane impact probability on Miami is 0.053, compared to the 1948-2022 mean of 0.081 — a decrease of 35%. The forecast best-estimate major hurricane impact on Miami is 0.018, compared to the 1958-2022 mean of 0.033, a decrease of 45%.
These decreased probabilities can be seen in the Figures below, which show 2026 forecast and 1948-2022 mean maps of impact probability for all hurricanes (Figure 1) and major hurricanes (Figure 2). We show best-estimate probabilities on a mapped sample of coastal locations in Figure 3. Large uncertainty is an inherent feature of seasonal forecasting, and location data available in Figure 3 also lists our lower and upper estimates from our ranges of uncertainty. (There’s a 5% chance the true value falls below the lower estimate or above the upper estimate.) For locations along the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean, the forecast uncertainty renders the forecast best-estimate reductions insignificant. (The best estimate is lower than the 1948-2022 mean, but there’s more than a 5% chance of being higher.) However, for locations along the US east coast, the reductions are significant.
The total number of hurricanes and major hurricanes that form in the season is also forecast to be reduced, though not as reduced as the local impact probabilities. The best-estimate forecast is 5.2 hurricanes (2 to 9, 5%-95% uncertainty) and 1.8 major hurricanes (0 to 4, 5%-95% uncertainty), compared to 1948-2022 mean values of 6.6 and 2.6. Local impact probabilities are affected by factors in addition to total hurricane counts. Our model also predicts how long tropical cyclones remain intense. The combination of fewer hurricanes and major hurricanes and shorter duration at those intensities decreases the odds of a locality being impacted beyond merely the overall formation rate. In addition, the model predicts seasonal changes in average paths of tropical cyclones, which can have a further impact on local probabilities.
The factors driving our hurricane forecasts are forecasts of the state of El Niño/La Niña, an irregularly varying signal in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical Pacific, and SST in the subtropical North Atlantic. We make use of SST forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which has one of the best track records. As of early May, ECMWF forecast a strong El Niño and an elevated subtropical Atlantic SST for June, July and August — the bulk of the hurricane season.. El Niño suppresses Atlantic hurricane activity, while warm subtropical Atlantic SSTs enhance activity. Taken together, the strong El Niño, when run through our model, more than cancels the elevated SST, resulting in reduced hurricane activity.
This piece is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation.
Learn more about the S&P Global Climate Center of Excellence
Contact the author: timothy.hall@spglobal.com