In a ninth-grade earth science classroom in Fort Myers, Florida, a teacher pulled up NOAA's seasonal hurricane map on the whiteboard. It was the last week of May, state testing had just ended, and her students had finally stopped asking about grades. She asked them to find their own neighborhoods on the color-shaded probability map, then read the key aloud. One boy, whose grandmother lives in a manufactured-home community near Bonita Springs, asked the question that matters most: “Is it going to hit us?” The seasonal outlook cannot answer that question, and that is the first thing to understand about it.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center released its initial 2026 Atlantic hurricane season outlook in late May, warning that the six-month season that begins June 1 has elevated odds of above-average storm activity. The outlook covers the Atlantic basin, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and it shapes how emergency managers, insurers, school superintendents, and millions of coastal residents prepare for the months ahead. Above-average does not mean a hurricane will make landfall in any particular town. It means the conditions that generate storms are expected to be more active than the long-term baseline.
The agency will update the outlook in early August, just before the season's usual peak. Until then, the language in the May outlook sets the tone for public risk communication.
What Sits Behind the Above-Average Signal
Seasonal hurricane forecasting depends on two large forces that are well measured but only partly predictable. The first is the state of the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Warmer sea surface temperatures supply more energy to developing storms, and the Atlantic has been running unusually warm in recent years. The second is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, in the tropical Pacific. El Niño tends to increase vertical wind shear over the Atlantic, which can tear storms apart; La Niña tends to reduce that shear and let storms organize. When Atlantic waters run warm and the Pacific leans toward neutral or La Niña conditions, the Atlantic hurricane season usually has an easier time reaching above-average activity.
Forecasters also watch the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, a longer-running pattern of warm and cool phases in the North Atlantic. The warm phase, which sets in for decades, has been associated with more frequent and longer-lived hurricanes. Model guidance, historical analogs, and current oceanic readings all feed into the Climate Prediction Center's outlook, but the forecast is inherently probabilistic. It is not a promise about the number of landfalls.
What the outlook can do is tell emergency managers where to put extra staffing, when to stage supplies, and how to talk to residents before a storm has a name. For a coastal school district, that means checking roof drains, updating pickup plans, and deciding which campuses can double as shelters.
What an Above-Average Season Actually Counts
NOAA's 1991–2020 baseline for the Atlantic basin is 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes. A named storm is a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of at least 39 mph; a hurricane reaches 74 mph; a major hurricane is a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with winds of 111 mph or more. An above-average season comes in above those long-term numbers, though the exact count matters less than the pattern behind it. Seasonal outlooks also use a broader yardstick called Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE, which combines storm intensity and duration into a single number.
The Climate Prediction Center's Atlantic hurricane season outlook groups each season into probability bins, with an above-average bin, a near-average bin, a below-average bin, and an overall confidence phrase. The 2026 outlook places the highest probability in the above-average bin, which is the kind of signal that gets attention from Gulf Coast mayors and Atlantic seaboard county officials. The NOAA Climate.gov ENSO page explains the Pacific pattern that forecasters are watching as the season begins.
A busy basin does not distribute its storms evenly. Some years produce many storms that curve out to sea; other years produce fewer storms but several landfalls. Residents should not read a high storm count as a personal forecast. The National Hurricane Center issues track, intensity, and storm-surge forecasts for individual storms once they form, and only those products show likely landfall areas days ahead.
Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash
Why the Cone Is Not a Seasonal Prediction
Some of the confusion in classrooms and living rooms comes from mixing two products. NOAA's seasonal outlook is a broad probability statement issued before the season and updated in August. The forecast cone, officially called the tropical cyclone forecast cone, appears only when a named storm or hurricane has developed. The cone shows the probable path of the storm center over the next five days, and its width reflects historical forecast error, not the size of the storm or its impacts. Wind, rain, and surge can extend far beyond the cone.
In 2026, the first named storm will be Andrea, followed by Barry, Chantal, Dexter, and Erin. Names are assigned by the World Meteorological Organization and retired only if a storm is so deadly or costly that future use would be inappropriate. The naming list gives the season a familiar rhythm, but it also produces an early hazard: people sometimes stop preparing because the first few storms are weak or stay at sea. A quiet June does not cancel an above-average outlook, because the peak of the season runs from mid-August through late October.
The early August update from the Climate Prediction Center matters more than the May outlook for that reason. By then, forecasters can see whether the Pacific has shifted, how warm the Atlantic is just before the peak, and whether the early season has already spent some of its available energy.
Preparing Before the Cone Heads Your Way
Emergency managers repeat a simple point: the time to buy supplies is before a watch or warning, not during the rush that follows. What would your household do if the cone shifted toward your county tonight? If the answer involves a chain of errands, missing documents, or a pet left behind, the seasonal outlook has already given you the warning you need.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends several steps before June. Write or update an evacuation plan that includes a designated meeting place and an out-of-town contact. Build a disaster kit with water, nonperishable food, medicines, batteries, a first aid kit, and chargers. Store important documents in a waterproof container or secure digital files. Check your insurance policy, because most homeowners policies do not cover flood damage. Flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program generally has a 30-day waiting period before coverage begins, which means purchasing it after a storm forms is often too late.
School districts and workplaces have their own versions of this checklist. Coastal school systems test parent-notification systems, refuel buses, and stage cots for shelters. Hospitals drill generator transfers and patient movement. The Ready.gov hurricane page walks residents through the same steps in plain language. The National Hurricane Center's preparedness guidance connects each action to the storm hazards that justify it: wind, surge, flooding, and tornadoes.
Even inland readers have a stake. Hurricanes weaken into tropical storms and remnants that can deliver heavy rain hundreds of miles from the coast, as past seasons have shown in the southern Appalachians and the Northeast. An above-average Atlantic season raises the odds of those inland flood events simply because more storms are in circulation.
What the August Update Will Clarify
NOAA's early August update will be a better guide to the peak weeks. By then, forecasters will know whether the first named storms consumed any of the season's early energy, whether a Pacific pattern has strengthened or faded, and whether the tropical Atlantic has kept its above-average warmth. The update can shift probabilities up or down, and it often changes how local officials decide to pre-position state and federal assets.
Active seasons are measured in total activity, while individual communities experience the season one storm at a time. A small town can be devastated in a below-average season, and a major metropolitan area can escape an above-average one. The outlook is a planning tool, not a verdict.
Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash
Back in that Fort Myers classroom, the teacher did not try to answer the boy's question with a yes or a no. She opened the local evacuation zone map and showed him which two roads his grandmother would need to leave by if an evacuation order came. Then she assigned one piece of homework: go home and ask your family what the plan is. The outlook had already done its job, long before the first storm had a name.