Colorado State left its hurricane numbers exactly where they were in July, and its own map puts Naples and Fort Myers in the 7 percent bucket rather than the 9
Nothing changed.
Colorado State University issued its August update to the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season forecast on Wednesday, and every number in it is the number the same team published on 8 July. Nine named storms. Four hurricanes. One major hurricane, meaning Category 3 or above. Accumulated Cyclone Energy of 50, against a 1991 to 2020 average of 123.
A forecast that does not move is a forecast the forecasters have grown more confident in, and the document says as much in its own words.
The numbers, and what they are measured against
The table runs nine parameters, each printed beside its 1991 to 2020 average. Named storms, 9 against an average of 14.4. Hurricanes, 4 against 7.2. Major hurricanes, 1 against 3.2. Named storm days, 35 against 69.4. Net Tropical Cyclone Activity, 60 percent against 135.
Two named storms have already formed, Arthur and Bertha, and neither became a hurricane. Observed Accumulated Cyclone Energy through 4 August was 3, against a full-season forecast of 50. That leaves 47 for the rest of the season, along with seven more named storms, four hurricanes and one major hurricane.
The team puts total 2026 activity at about 40 percent of the average season. Last year ran at about 105 percent.
Why they are confident
El Nino. The team cites a high likelihood of a strong event, which drives upper-level westerly winds across the Caribbean into the tropical Atlantic and with them high vertical wind shear, which suppresses hurricane formation and intensification.
Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean have warmed modestly and now sit slightly above their long-term averages, which on its own would argue the other way. The forecasters address that directly and say they expect the El Nino to dominate. Vertical wind shear across the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic was already extremely high in July.
The analog seasons the team lists are 1965, 1982, 1987, 1997, 2009 and 2015. All six had below-average activity, which is the reason Philip Klotzbach, the lead author, gives for the team's confidence.
The Cedar Key line
This is the part worth reading slowly, because it is where a national forecast becomes a local one.
The report gives four landfall probabilities for the remainder of the season, and it defines each region geographically. The entire continental United States coastline carries a 16 percent chance of at least one major hurricane landfall, against a full-season average of 43 percent measured from 1880 to 2020. The Caribbean carries 17 percent against 47.
Florida is split in two, and the dividing point is Cedar Key. Everything south and east of it is grouped with the United States East Coast and carries 7 percent, against an average of 21. Everything west and north of it, running along the Panhandle and onward to Brownsville, is the Gulf Coast region and carries 9 percent, against an average of 27.
Cedar Key sits in Levy County. Naples, Fort Myers and Cape Coral are all south of it. So although Southwest Florida faces the Gulf, the report's own boundary places it in the peninsula group at 7 percent rather than the Gulf group at 9.
That is a statement about how the forecast divides a coastline. It is not a probability for any city, and the report does not offer one here.
The caveats the authors put in themselves
The forecast is described in the document as a best estimate of seasonal activity and not an exact measure. This is the 43rd year Colorado State has issued one, a run that began with the late Bill Gray.
New this year is a machine learning model, the Ai2 Climate Emulator, run on predicted sea surface temperatures from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. All the model guidance points the same way.
The report discloses its own funding: Ironshore Insurance, the Insurance Information Institute, Gallagher Re, Insurance Auto Auctions and Commodity Weather Group, together with a grant from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation.
Michael Bell, one of the authors, is quoted with the sentence that does the most work in a quiet forecast. It takes only one storm near you to make this an active season for you.
