The first official forecast of the 2026 Atlantic tropical season was released this week by Colorado State University scientists. It shows that they are expecting the number of named storms to be slightly below the long-term average and all of the other related hurricane variables like accumulated energy are also expected to be below average. This is due in large part to the expected strong presence of an El Nino that is predicted to be developing in the Eastern Pacific Ocean later this summer. El Ninos usually enhance the likelihood of storms developing in the Eastern Pacific Ocean due to the warm water there and decrease the likelihood of storms developing in the Atlantic due to the presence of a strong jet stream aloft that disrupts the vertical development of tropical waves before they can become strong storms. If you like details, you can check out their report at https://tropical.colostate.edu/Forecast/2026-04.pdf. Note that this only predicts the number of storms, not where they will go, so anyone within the hurricane area should be prepared for a storm, since it only takes one to do immense damage if it hits your location.
