It’s that time of year again.
June 1st is the start of hurricane season in the southeastern US. That means it may be time to start keeping an eye on the tropics. It also means that it’s time to start preparing for what you should do when a system looks like it may be headed for your area.
So what does the outlook hold for 2026?
Given that an El nino is expected to develop, it may mean that we could be in for a quieter year. This does not mean that won’t be any hurricanes or that there won’t be any significant storms though. The National Hurricane Center is going to release there official forecast for the season later, so stay tuned for that.
As for the short term forecast, I can say that it looks very quiet. The waters in the Gulf are relatively cool given repeated frontal intrusions. Additionally, the subtropical jet is still hanging out in the area. Neither of these is unusual for this time of year but it’s good to see that we don’t have any early storms developing.
Hurricane season generally ramps up slowly, peaking in early September. It may be awhile before we see anything form that would have a chance to impact our region. We will let you know if anything is expected to develop (or even might develop) so definitely keep an eye out for updates.
