Forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday that they expected this year’s Atlantic hurricane season to be one of the quietest in several years.
While the data suggests a reprieve for the Atlantic areas, which are battered by hurricanes’ landfall most often, NOAA’s scientists warned that an unusually stormy season in the Eastern Pacific Ocean could affect the West Coast and Hawaii.
The prediction for the Atlantic hurricane season, which begins on June 1 and runs through the end of November, includes eight to 14 named storms. That would make for a below–normal season.
A typical Atlantic season has 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes and, of those, three major hurricanes.
Neil Jacobs, the NOAA administrator, said at a news conference on Thursday that the agency expected three to six of the named storms to become hurricanes. Of those, one to three were predicted to become major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher).
The driver behind this forecast is the near certainty that an El Niño weather pattern will form this summer. The global phenomenon is expected to persist into the fall, providing a stabilizing force that may act as a lid on Atlantic activity.
“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 Ken Graham, NOAA’s National Weather Service director.
What constitutes a “busy” hurricane season in the public imagination isn’t the total number of storms; it is where they make landfall. And that perception “is a very U.S.-centric thing,” said Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University. His researchers issued a similar seasonal forecast in April, and he said they expected to potentially lower their numbers in an update next month.
Dr. Klotzbach noted that while last year’s hurricane season was above average by nearly every scientific metric, many in the United States might remember it as quiet because few major storms hit the U.S. coast. But there were three Category 5 hurricanes in 2025, including Melissa, whose winds and flooding caused devastation in Jamaica.
The statistical odds of a major U.S. landfall are even lower this year, but they are not zero.
El Niño (usually) suppresses Atlantic storms.
In the meteorology world, El Niño is neither good nor bad — it is just a natural shift in global weather patterns. Across the Atlantic Ocean, it is a formidable opponent for developing storms. Strong El Niño patterns in the Pacific produce high-altitude changes to wind in the Atlantic that can shred developing hurricanes before they form.
But not always. In 2023, an El Niño was present, but Atlantic Ocean temperatures were at record highs. This created a tug of war between El Niño’s wind changes and the ocean’s raw energy. That season eventually produced 20 named storms, far exceeding initial predictions.
This year, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean are “almost record-warm,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami. But the deep tropics, the areas closest to the Equator, are closer to normal. If those temperatures hold, he said, this year may mirror 2015, which had only 11 named storms.
Even in that relatively quiet year, though, Hurricane Joaquin damaged islands in the central and southeastern Bahamas and sank the cargo ship El Faro.
Another otherwise quieter El Niño year was 2018, when Hurricane Michael still hit the Florida coast. Despite an environment that should have been hostile to the formation of a hurricane, Michael found a small pocket of calm conditions that allowed it to intensify into a Category 5, wiping out homes along the Panhandle.
Historical data reflects this volatility. During the 15 warmest El Niño seasons since 1950, 11 hurricanes made landfall in the United States. In contrast, during the seasons dominated by El Niño’s cooler counterpart, La Niña, that number jumps to 31, Dr. Klotzbach said.
It’s a different story in the Pacific.
While the areas along the Atlantic Ocean may catch a break this year, areas in the Eastern Pacific could face more storms than is typical. Storms that form in either ocean generally move west, so Pacific storms rarely affect the U.S. West Coast. If a storm forms in the Pacific close to land, it can bring damaging winds and rain before pushing out to sea. Sometimes an air mass can block a storm, driving it north or northeast toward the Baja California peninsula, the west coast of Mexico or even Southern California.
El Niño typically fuels increased activity in the Eastern Pacific. In 2023, the most recent El Niño year, Hurricane Otis caught forecasters off guard when it rapidly intensified before slamming into Acapulco, Mexico. Earlier that season, Hurricane Hilary made a run at Southern California and drenched the desert southwest in flooding rain.
Hawaii also faces an increased risk. The islands are still recovering from one of the wettest Marches on record, and while the state is often protected by cooler waters to its east, El Niño can open a corridor for storms to approach it from the south.
Judson Jones is a meteorologist and reporter for The Times who forecasts and covers extreme weather.
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