There has not been a single hurricane in the Atlantic this season.
Not one.
Meanwhile, the Pacific just produced a Category 5 hurricane with winds reaching 180 mph.
That sounds completely backward, but it is actually the same giant weather pattern doing two very different things on opposite sides of the continent.
The Atlantic Hurricane Season Is Historically Quiet
As of September 22, six named storms had formed in the Atlantic basin, but none of them had strengthened into a hurricane.
That makes 2026 the latest start to an Atlantic hurricane season in the modern satellite era. The season is not over until November 30, so this does not mean the coast is magically safe for the rest of the year. It does mean we have blown past the part of the calendar when the Atlantic usually becomes extremely active.
The main reason is El Niño.
NOAA’s August Atlantic outlook gave El Niño a 90% chance of becoming strong or very strong during the rest of hurricane season. In the Atlantic, El Niño tends to increase vertical wind shear.
A tropical system needs its thunderstorms stacked over its center. Wind shear changes the speed or direction of the wind as you move higher through the atmosphere, tilting that structure and ripping apart storms that are trying to organize.
Basically, the Atlantic currently has a giant atmospheric leaf blower pointed at it.
Then There Is Hurricane Polo
On the other side of Mexico, Hurricane Polo did the exact opposite of struggling.
Polo exploded from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane in less than two days.
By Tuesday afternoon, Polo’s sustained winds had reached roughly 180 mph.
The hurricane’s core was forecast to remain offshore, but that does not make it harmless. Parts of Guerrero, Michoacán and nearby states still face extremely heavy rain, dangerous surf, rip currents, flash flooding and potentially life-threatening mudslides.
How Can One Ocean Be So Quiet While the Other Is Doing This?
El Niño changes large-scale wind and ocean patterns across the planet.
In the Atlantic, that frequently means more hostile wind shear and fewer opportunities for hurricanes to organize. In the eastern and central Pacific, unusually warm water and more favorable atmospheric conditions can make it easier for storms to strengthen.
NASA photographed three tropical cyclones spinning in the Pacific at the same time earlier this month while the Atlantic remained unusually quiet. Polo is now the latest and most dramatic example of the imbalance.
No, a Hurricane Is Not Coming to Colorado
Let us please be extremely clear about that.
Long-range weather models sometimes show moisture from a Pacific tropical system getting pulled north into the western United States. Some of Polo’s remnant moisture could eventually contribute to clouds or rain farther north if the atmospheric setup lines up correctly.
But that is a very stretchy “could.” For Colorado, this remains speculation—not an official forecast.
There are a lot of atmospheric dominoes between a Category 5 hurricane off Mexico and rain in Colorado. Polo is not forecast to travel here as a hurricane.
So the fascinating part is not that Colorado is about to get a hurricane. We are not.
The fascinating part is that El Niño has helped make the Atlantic almost impossibly hostile to hurricanes while the Pacific is out there producing monsters.
Weather conditions and forecasts can change quickly. Follow the National Hurricane Center and local National Weather Service alerts for current safety information.
