The Atlantic Is on Track to Go the Entire Season Without a Hurricane

Will the Atlantic break a record that has stood for 121 years? The abnormally quiet tropical weather season in this part of the world's oceans has put this record in reach.

Atlantic Basin Has Yet to Produce a Hurricane This Season

There has not been a single hurricane in the Atlantic this year, putting a record dating back to 1905 in reach. Although there have been no hurricanes, the basin has produced eight named storms. Three of these tropical storms came ashore along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Forecasting agency Accuweather is now predicting zero to two hurricanes this season in its revised tropical weather forecast. The agency said that the high confidence of a record-breaking Super El Niño developing in the Pacific is to blame for the lack of hurricane activity this year in the Main Development Region of the Atlantic Ocean.

What has already been a calm season could go down in the record books if this pattern holds. October 8 is the latest date in history for the first hurricane of the Atlantic basin, a record that goes back to 1905. There have been just two years in recorded history, 1907 and 1914, that closed out the season with no known hurricanes. Should no hurricane come to life this year, it will be the first known time that the Atlantic has not formed a storm of this magnitude since records began in 1851.

Despite the lack of activity this year, hurricane experts caution that there is still time for a major storm to form and intensify. Tropical Storm Fay came just 4 mph shy of becoming a hurricane recently. All it will take is one disturbance to find the right environmental conditions to evolve into a hurricane.