The Eastern North Pacific Hurricane season officially began on Friday May 15, 2026.\u00a0 The season began quietly.\u00a0 No tropical depressions, tropical storms or hurricanes were present over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 No tropical cyclones are expected to form over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean during the next few days.\u00a0\u00a0 Whenever a tropical storm does form over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean, the first name on the list will be Amanda.<\/p>\n
A strong El Ni\u00f1o pattern is expected to develop over the Equatorial Pacific Ocean during the next few months.\u00a0 Much warmer than normal Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) are expected to be present over the eastern Equatorial Pacific Ocean during the hurricane season.\u00a0\u00a0 During a strong El Ni\u00f1o the Sea Surface Temperatures over much of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean are also usually warmer than normal.<\/p>\n
While the effect of an El Ni\u00f1o on the Atlantic hurricane season is typically to reduce the number of tropical storms and hurricanes because of more vertical wind shear, the effect of an El Ni\u00f1o on the activity over the Eastern North Pacific can be more complicated.\u00a0 The effect of an El Ni\u00f1o on the Eastern North Pacific hurricane activity depends partly on where the warmest Equatorial Sea Surface Temperatures are located.<\/p>\n
The warmer Sea Surface Temperatures associated with an El Ni\u00f1o produce more rising motion and convection.\u00a0 The stronger rising motion begins to move toward the east when it reaches the upper troposphere where it produces stronger westerly winds which in turn cause more vertical wind shear.<\/p>\n
Warmer Sea Surface Temperatures are favorable for more and stronger hurricanes.\u00a0 If the stronger rising motion occurs over the eastern part of the Equatorial Pacific, then the increased vertical wind shear will occur over the Caribbean Sea.\u00a0 In that case the El Ni\u00f1o contributes to a more active Eastern North Pacific hurricane season, because the stronger wind shear is not over the Eastern North Pacific.<\/p>\n
However, if the stronger rising motion occurs a little farther to the west in the Equatorial Pacific southeast of Hawaii, then there will be more vertical wind shear over parts of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The stronger vertical wind shear will partially offset the effect of the Warmer Sea Surface Temperatures.\u00a0 The warmer SSTs may result in more tropical storms, but more vertical wind shear may somewhat limit the number and strength of hurricanes that form over the Eastern North Pacific.<\/p>\n
So, the effect of a strong El Ni\u00f1o on the Eastern North Pacific hurricane season in 2026 will depend on where the strongest convection occurs during the next few months.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Eastern North Pacific Hurricane season officially began on Friday May 15, 2026.\u00a0 The season began quietly.\u00a0 No tropical depressions, tropical storms or hurricanes were present over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 No tropical cyclones are expected to form over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean during the next few days.\u00a0\u00a0 Whenever a tropical storm does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[1028,4158,2903],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24392,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24391\/revisions\/24392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}