We're nearing the end of September, and we have yet to see a hurricane anywhere in the Atlantic.

It's already, by far, the longest wait on record for the season's first hurricane in the satellite era. Previously, that record long wait was Sept. 11 in both 2013 and 2002.

An average Atlantic hurricane season would have five hurricanes by September 28, according to the National Hurricane Center.

0 for September?

Only twice since World War II has this peak month of hurricane season failed to generate a single Atlantic hurricane.

Those two seasons – 1962 and 1994 – each produced seven tropical storms throughout the season and both seasons saw multiple late-season hurricanes.

• 1962: Four hurricanes, none of which became a Category 3 hurricane. Three of them formed after October 1. Neither El Niño, nor La Niña conditions were prevalent throughout the season.
• 1994: Three hurricanes, none of which became a Category 3 hurricane. Two of them formed after November 1 and none formed in October. The peak of the season featured a building El Niño.

(MORE: Peak hurricane season passes with a blank map)

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Neither Fay nor Gonzalo in the far eastern Atlantic are forecast to become hurricanes.

So it appears 2026 will be the third Atlantic hurricane shutout over the past 82 years.

What has happened in other strong El Niño seasons?

The list of similar seasons is a short one – consisting of 1972, 1982, 1997 and 2015 – but the tracks are pretty telling.

Of the seven storms that have formed after mid-September, none made it back to the U.S. coastline.

Numerous storms formed, even thrived, in the neighborhood of the Bahamas, then got caught by the tag team of clockwise flow of the Bermuda High and the eastward flow of the jet stream. Most of the storms ended over the far northern Atlantic on their way toward Europe.

(WINTER OUTLOOK: El Niño could fuel Southern snow threat)

One important caveat is that the U.S. still faced indirect impacts from at least one of these storms.

Hurricane Joaquin in 2015 blew up over the central Bahamas and fed a firehose of moisture into the Carolinas despite the storm never approaching the U.S. The atmospheric river flooding caused $2 billion damage and more than two dozen deaths.

Are we out of the woods yet from a U.S. hurricane landfall?

Not yet.

Hurricane Kate in 2015 formed in November amid super El Niño conditions and in the two years mentioned earlier in the article, a hurricane meandered near the North Carolina and Virginia coast in December 1962.

Years later, Hurricane Gordon also approached the North Carolina coast in mid-November 1994 before making landfall in Florida as a tropical depression.

Putting away the storm shutters and the hurricane kit for the season is starting to look like an ok decision, but don't bury them in the garage just yet.

Regardless of whether we see a hurricane or a hurricane landfall, El Niño could still bring some serious impacts to the Southeast at the end of the year into the early months of 2027.

Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for weather.com for 10 years. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.