As of September 23, 2026, the National Hurricane Center records six named Atlantic storms — Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard and Fay — but none has reached hurricane strength. Normally, by this point, the Atlantic has produced about four hurricanes, including roughly two major hurricanes.
When did this last happen?
You have to go back 112 years, to 1914, to find an Atlantic season that reached this point in September without producing a hurricane. In fact, the historical record shows only two entire Atlantic seasons with zero hurricanes:
- 1907 — 0 hurricanes
- 1914 — 0 hurricanes
- 2026 — 0 hurricanes so far, as of September 23
The 1914 season ultimately finished without a hurricane at all, and NOAA’s historical reanalysis describes it as the quietest Atlantic hurricane season on record.
There’s an important caveat: 1907 and 1914 were long before satellites, so hurricanes that remained far out at sea could have gone undetected. That’s one reason 2026 is particularly remarkable — in the modern satellite era, we’re extremely unlikely to have simply missed one.
2026 is breaking modern records
The season has already smashed the satellite-era record for the latest first hurricane. Previously, 2002 and 2013 waited until September 11 for their first hurricanes. We’ve now gone almost two weeks beyond that.
The numbers are striking. NOAA/NHC currently lists:
| Through Sept. 23 | 2026 | Normal |
|---|---|---|
| Named storms | 6 | ~10 |
| Hurricanes | 0 | ~4 |
| Major hurricanes | 0 | ~2 |
| ACE | 6.3 | ~79* |
*The NHC says 2026’s ACE is currently 92% below the 1991–2020 normal for this point in the season.
One major contributor has been El Niño and unusually strong wind shear, which has made it difficult for tropical storms to organize and intensify into hurricanes.
And today, September 23, the NHC reports no active tropical cyclones anywhere in the Atlantic basin, although the season doesn’t officially end until November 30.
So if 2026 ends without a hurricane, it would become only the third hurricane-free Atlantic season in the historical record — after 1907 and 1914 — and the first in the satellite era.
For Grenada and the Caribbean, though, the season isn’t over: October can still produce significant Caribbean hurricanes, so this extraordinary quiet period shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning the threat has passed.
