LAGOS, Nigeria. (Voice Of Naija) The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season has been one of the quietest on record, suppressed almost entirely by the record-breaking Super El Niño now gripping the Pacific.
Still, meteorologists are watching two new tropical systems forming in the Atlantic that must fight their way through El Niño’s storm-killing conditions before they can threaten land.
Tropical Storm Cristobal, the Atlantic season’s third named storm, formed in the open northern Atlantic on Wednesday, August 13, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, according to the United States National Hurricane Center.
According to CNN, the storm dissipated over the open ocean by Thursday afternoon without threatening any coastline, and it never gained the strength to develop into a hurricane.
Cristobal’s brief life followed a similar pattern set by the season’s two earlier storms, Arthur and Bertha, both of which formed along the US Gulf Coast and were beaten back by relentless wind shear before causing significant damage.
However, forecasters are now watching two additional areas of tropical development in the Atlantic with growing concern.
According to the National Hurricane Center, one area in the main tropical development region has an 80 per cent chance of becoming at least a tropical depression within the next few days. A second area farther east has a 50 per cent chance of development over the coming week. If a new storm forms in the basin, it will be named Dolly.
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The force suppressing this hurricane season is the same Super El Niño that has already triggered catastrophic flooding in Chile, intensified typhoons in the Pacific and disrupted rainfall patterns across Africa and Asia.
In the Atlantic, El Niño manifests differently, not through more storms, but through record-strong wind shear that tears developing tropical systems apart before they can organise into hurricanes.
Wind shear is a change in wind speed or direction at different levels of the atmosphere. According to CNN, it can prevent storms from forming in the first place, keep them from strengthening, or rip apart systems that are already trying to develop.
El Niño’s influence has placed this atmospheric storm-killer firmly across the Atlantic’s main development region, the stretch of warm tropical ocean between West Africa and the Caribbean that typically spawns the season’s most powerful hurricanes between mid-August and mid-October.
The impact has been historic. NOAA released a forecast update last week raising its probability of a below-average Atlantic hurricane season from 55 per cent to 75 per cent and cutting its projected range for major hurricanes Category 3 or stronger from one to three storms down to zero to two.
According to CNN, if the 2026 Atlantic season concludes without a single major hurricane, it will be the first time that has happened since 2013. Colorado State University’s hurricane research team confirmed it shared NOAA’s increasingly confident assessment of a historically subdued season.
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The systems now being tracked in the Atlantic face the same fundamental challenge that ended Cristobal’s brief existence. The main development region, which should be firing up at this point in a typical hurricane season as wind shear relaxes and ocean temperatures rise, remains dominated by El Niño’s influence.
CNN meteorologist Chris Warren said the upcoming tropical contenders face an uphill battle to form, survive and strengthen against El Niño’s hostile conditions.
“El Niño’s abundant storm-killing wind shear is a force that’s more likely to stick around as El Niño grows into a potentially record-breaking Super El Niño in the coming months,” Warren said.
Both systems are being monitored by the NHC, and forecasters stressed that the situation remains fluid. If either system manages to survive long enough to find a gap in El Niño’s wind shear, it could develop rapidly in the warm ocean waters that now characterise the Atlantic, making close monitoring essential even in an otherwise quiet season.
The 2026 Atlantic hurricane story connects to a larger climate picture that touches West Africa directly. The same Super El Niño suppressing Atlantic hurricanes is forecast to drive above-normal rainfall across Nigeria’s southern coastal belt this season, raising flood risk across already vulnerable communities in the Niger Delta, Anambra and Cross River states.
The African Union’s Climate Outlook Forum has warned of heightened flood exposure for over 1,200 Nigerian communities in 2026. While Nigerians do not face direct hurricane threats, the climate system driving this year’s unusual Atlantic season is the same one reshaping the rainfall patterns, flood cycles and agricultural conditions that millions of Nigerians depend on every day.
