NOAA issued its final La Niña advisory on Thursday and simultaneously posted an El Niño Watch, marking a significant shift in Pacific Ocean conditions that could suppress Atlantic hurricane activity this year. The same day, Colorado State University released its early 2026 hurricane season forecast, calling for slightly below-average storm activity, welcome news for coastal communities still recovering from recent extreme weather.
The back-to-back announcements, reported by FOX Weather, came as forecasters gathered at the annual National Tropical Weather Conference in South Padre Island, Texas, now roughly 53 days from the start of the 2026 hurricane season. FOX Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross joined the network from the conference as the meteorological community digested what the Pacific's transition means for the months ahead.
For Americans who have endured a punishing stretch of winter storms, from blizzards burying the Northeast to record snowfall across the Upper Midwest, the forecast shift offers a clearer picture of what summer and fall may bring. The short version: the odds favor a calmer Atlantic hurricane season than the country has seen in recent years.
La Niña first settled into the Pacific around September. By the beginning of 2026, neutral conditions had started creeping in. Thursday's advisory made the transition official: ocean temperatures in the Central and East-Central equatorial Pacific are now near average, ending the cooler-than-normal pattern that defines La Niña.
But NOAA did not stop there. The agency's El Niño Watch noted that the warmer climate pattern could take over as early as this summer and persist through the end of the year. The numbers are specific: a 61 percent chance the Pacific transitions into El Niño conditions by June, and a one-in-four chance that a "very strong" El Niño takes shape by next winter.
That matters for hurricane season in a direct, physical way. The FOX Forecast Center explained that El Niño typically brings increased wind shear across the Atlantic Basin. Wind shear disrupts the vertical structure that tropical storms need to organize and strengthen. More shear generally means fewer hurricanes, or at least weaker ones.
The flip side: El Niño tends to boost tropical activity in the Central and Eastern Pacific. Residents of Hawaii and communities along the Pacific coast should not assume a quiet season everywhere.
Colorado State University's Thursday forecast reinforced the El Niño signal. CSU's seasonal hurricane outlooks are among the most closely watched in the field, and this year's early call projects slightly below-average activity in the Atlantic.
The specific storm counts and intensity projections were not detailed in the initial reporting, but the "slightly below-average" label stands in contrast to the hyperactive seasons that have battered the Gulf Coast, Florida, and the Carolinas in recent memory. For homeowners, insurers, and local governments still tallying costs from past storms, even a modest dip in activity translates to real relief.
That said, "below average" is not "zero." A single well-placed hurricane can cause catastrophic damage regardless of what the seasonal totals look like. Preparedness remains the responsibility of every household in a hurricane-prone zone, a point forecasters repeat every year, and one that bears repeating now.
The La Niña pattern that just ended helped fuel a winter that tested communities across the country. Image records from the conference coverage tell the story in snapshots: blizzard conditions hammered Green Bay, Wisconsin, on March 16, 2026. Nearly a foot of snow buried North Patchogue, New York, on February 23. A vicious blizzard struck Richmond, Rhode Island, the same month.
South Lake Tahoe, California, saw heavy snow on February 17. Boston commuters packed onto MBTA buses on January 29 after storms dumped heavy snowfall across the region. A day earlier, residents in Somerville, Massachusetts, were digging vehicles out of drifts.
Those scenes fit a broader pattern of extreme winter weather that stretched from coast to coast. Deadly winter storms earlier this year claimed dozens of lives as freezing conditions gripped wide swaths of the country.
And winter was not the only season dealing out punishment. Multi-day severe weather outbreaks have already targeted Texas and the Plains with damaging hail and tornadoes this spring, reminding Americans that weather risk does not wait for hurricane season to begin.
The transition from La Niña to neutral, and potentially to El Niño, carries consequences that extend well beyond forecasting models. Federal emergency management budgets, state pre-positioning of supplies, flood insurance pricing, and local evacuation planning all hinge in part on seasonal outlooks.
A below-average Atlantic season would ease pressure on FEMA and state emergency agencies that have been stretched thin by back-to-back disaster years. It would also give Gulf Coast and Southeast communities a window to rebuild infrastructure, shore up levees, and clear debris from previous storms without facing an immediate new threat.
None of that happens automatically. Government agencies at every level have a track record of treating calm seasons as an excuse to defer maintenance and cut preparedness spending, only to scramble when the next big storm arrives. Taxpayers deserve better. A quieter season is an opportunity to get ahead, not an invitation to coast.
Hawaii's recent brush with its worst flooding in two decades, complicated by aging infrastructure, illustrates exactly what happens when officials treat good luck as a substitute for good planning.
Several unknowns remain. NOAA's El Niño Watch gives probabilities, not certainties. A 61 percent chance of El Niño by June means there is still a nearly four-in-ten chance it does not materialize on that timeline. And the one-in-four odds of a "very strong" El Niño by next winter, while notable, leave three-in-four scenarios where the pattern stays weaker or stalls.
CSU will update its forecast as the season approaches. The specific storm counts, named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes, were not broken out in the early release. Those details will matter when homeowners and businesses make decisions about insurance, shutters, and evacuation routes.
Atlantic sea surface temperatures, which have run abnormally warm in recent years and fueled some of the most intense storms on record, could complicate the El Niño signal. If the ocean stays unusually warm even as wind shear increases, the suppressive effect may be weaker than models suggest. Forecasters will be watching that tension closely through the spring.
Meanwhile, communities that have suffered through flash floods and deadly storm events around the world know that statistics offer cold comfort when the water is rising.
The Pacific's shift from La Niña to neutral, with El Niño increasingly likely, points toward a less active Atlantic hurricane season. Colorado State's early forecast backs that up. For millions of Americans living along the coast, that is genuinely good news.
But good news is not a guarantee, and a forecast is not a force field. The smart move is the same one it always is: prepare as if the worst is coming, and be grateful if it doesn't.
