The National Hurricane Center (NHC) does not expect any tropical cyclone to form over the next seven days, and no wave, low-pressure area or system is under watch that could develop into a depression, tropical storm or hurricane. The lull matters because 2026 is about to break a record that has stood since 1905, 121 years ago.
Philip Klotzbach, senior scientist at Colorado State University, one of the institutions that issues hurricane forecasts, said the 1905 record was set on October 8, the year in which the first hurricane of the season took the longest to form. He noted other notable records remain, since no hurricanes were recorded between 1907 and 1914.
Whether 2026 joins that list will not be known until November 30, when the season ends. As of October 3, 2026, no hurricane has formed. Only about eight tropical storms have been recorded: Arthur, Bertha, Cristóbal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo and Hanna.
Of these, only Dolly affected Puerto Rico, through its remnants, whose rains eased the extreme drought that had been affecting mainly the eastern part of the island. Ernesto Morales, warning coordinator at the National Weather Service in San Juan, linked the absence of hurricanes to El Niño, which he said creates a hostile environment for tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic basin.
He explained that a dry environment with abundant Saharan dust has prevailed, and that El Niño also produces strong shear winds that 'decapitate' any vertical development of a system.