The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season may be the first in modern times to fail to generate a single hurricane, largely due to a likely record-smashing El Niño.

Still waiting for number one

As of the end of September, there have been eight tropical storms in the Atlantic since June.

Not one of them became a hurricane.

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It's already a record-long wait for the Atlantic's first hurricane of any season in the modern satellite era, previously only as late as Sept. 11 in both 2013 and 2002.

It's also only the third time since World War II there were no September hurricanes, joining 1994 and 1962.

The season-to-date track map through the end of September looks about as blank as it can this deep into the season.

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What's more typical

By the end of September, five hurricanes have usually developed in an average Atlantic hurricane season, according to the National Hurricane Center.

That means you can typically expect two more hurricanes the rest of the season.

(MORE: Super El Niño's potential impact on the rest of fall)

October averages one to two hurricanes, while a November hurricane happens once every three years, according to NOAA's Hurricane Research Division.

These late-season storms most often form and track from the western Caribbean Sea and Gulf into the western Atlantic Ocean, as the map below shows.

Could a hurricane shutout really happen?

There were two Atlantic seasons with zero documented hurricanes — 1907 and 1914.

But that was decades before satellites were launched into orbit. Given the lack of "eyes in the sky," a hurricane or two may have been missed in these early years if a ship wasn't in the area at the time.

Satellites first continuously monitored the entire Atlantic basin starting in the mid-1960s.

Since then, the fewest hurricanes in any satellite-era season was two, both in 1982 and 2013.

One of those years — 1982 — was also during an eventual super El Niño.

So, we examined all the October and November storms that formed during El Niños that became "super" by the October-December period, plotted on the map below.

Of those nine storms, only three of them were hurricanes in those months — Joaquin and Kate in 2015 and Elena in 1965.

That means three of the five super El Niño hurricane seasons failed to produce a hurricane after Sept. 30.

You may have also noticed in the map that all but one of the tracks was far from the mainland U.S. A mid-October 1965 tropical storm near and over Florida was the lone exception.

It only takes one

So, the historical odds are both against a hurricane and particularly against any tropical system impacting the U.S. the rest of this season — dominated by El Niño flexing its muscles.

It may end up record quiet by modern-era standards.

But history doesn't guarantee future results. It only takes one storm to make a season memorable for all the wrong reasons.

(MORE: The most intense hurricanes in history)

Last season was relatively unremarkable until late October, when Category 5 Hurricane Melissa made its devastating strikes on Jamaica and Cuba.

And a tropical depression or storm can dump flooding rain, even if El Niño-turbocharged wind shear keeps it from becoming a hurricane. Three of this season's tropical storms have developed in the Gulf.

If you live in a hurricane zone, stay vigilant. Check in on the tropics and have your hurricane plan ready just in case the rest of the season delivers a surprising ending to a very quiet season.

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Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.