Overview
- In mid-July, NOAA maps and multiple analyses confirmed a rapidly strengthening El Niño in the tropical Pacific and a developing cool patch in the eastern equatorial Atlantic that analysts call an Atlantic Niña.
- El Niño acts mainly by boosting vertical wind shear over the tropical Atlantic, while the Atlantic Niña cools surface waters and reduces heat and moisture needed for thunderstorm growth.
- NOAA’s 2026 Atlantic outlook, informed by these signals, forecasts below-normal activity with eight to 14 named storms, three to six hurricanes, and one to three major hurricanes.
- The National Hurricane Center is monitoring two Atlantic disturbances with low short-term development chances of about 20% and 10%, and forecasters stress that a quieter season still carries risk of landfalling storms.
- The Atlantic Niña must persist across overlapping seasons at roughly 0.5°C below average to be formally counted, and if confirmed it would be only the sixth such event in about 40 years with implications for monsoon rainfall and winter jet patterns.