The midway point of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season was Sept. 10, and that’s pretty much considered the traditional peak of the season. Yet, there hasn’t been a single named hurricane. There have been six named tropical storms, and three of them made landfall, but none impacted Florida.
Since meteorologists started using satellites to track the weather in the 1960s, we’ve never made it this far into a hurricane season without a named hurricane.
While weather systems are complicated and many factors are at play, the fact that we’re also entering the strongest El Niño conditions on record is certainly playing a part. El Niño, and its counterpart La Niña, are basically phenomena determined by how warm the ocean water is in the Pacific Ocean, and how that effects how the trade winds in the Pacific Ocean behave, which in turn has a major impact on weather patterns beyond the Pacific Ocean.
Normal El Niños and La Niñas are fairly common, "super" El Niños less so. The last super one was a decade ago and the one before that was 1997-98.
But this year’s El Niño so far exceeds a typical super that we’re in essentially uncharted territory. We talk with a meteorologist to find out what it all means and what the rest of the year might bring.
Guest:
Megan Borowski, Senior Meteorologist with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network (FPREN)
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