El Niño Means Fewer Atlantic Hurricanes — But More Activity Worldwide
A strong El Niño is emerging in 2026. History tells us what we might expect.
The image above shows global tropical cyclone landfalls from 1980 through 2020 — via the IBTrACS global best-track data — and plots the difference between the two ENSO phases. Blue indicates coasts where more storms make landfall during the La Niña phase and red shows coasts where El Niño has more landfalls — the darker the shading the wider the gap between phases — using NOAA Climate Prediction Center ONI v5 ENSO index.
For the Caribbean, Central America, and U.S. Gulf and East coasts, the La Niña phase has about twice as many landfalls as during El Niño — 2.1× across the basin and 1.4× along the U.S. coastline. The Northwest Pacific — including the Philippines, China, Japan, and Korea — and the eastern Pacific toward Mexico and the South Pacific islands have more landfalls during the El Niño phase.
El Niño means fewer Atlantic hurricanes. But worldwide, El Niño years have more tropical cyclone activity. Today’s post explores what the emerging El Niño means for tropical cyclone activity and what it implies for U.S. damage potential.
1. What happens in the Atlantic
William Gray1, of Colorado State University, established the core dynamical understandings in the 1980s: During El Niño, warm water in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific drives an atmospheric response that strengthens vertical wind shear over the tropical Atlantic, and shear makes it difficult for developing storms to grow stronger. During La Niña the pattern flips: shear is reduced and the Atlantic main development region is more active.
Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is a metric that integrates tropical cyclone frequency and intensity, and the figure below shows that ACE values in the Atlantic are generally higher during the La Niña phase than El Niño — but that does not completely rule out the possibility of a very active El Niño year or an inactive La Niña year.
From 1950–2025, the median North Atlantic season had ~129 units of ACE in La Niña years versus ~79 in El Niño years — a ratio of ~1.6×. Neutral years fall in between, at ~97. For major hurricanes La Niña seasons average ~3.6 annually and El Niño seasons average ~2.0.
The figure above shows ACE for 1950 to 2025, shaded by ENSO phase. Most El Niño Atlantic seasons fall below the long-term ACE median of 99.4, but not all do, and vice versa for La Niña.
2. U.S. damage: updating our 1999 analysis
In 1999, Chris Landsea and I published a paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, “La Niña, El Niño, and Atlantic Hurricane Damages in the United States.” We assessed U.S. hurricane losses normalized to 1997 values according to ENSO phase and we found a strong relationship — La Niña years had much more normalized losses.
The figure above updates our analysis through 2025, and shows that our original findings have stood the test of time. In fact, the relationship is even stronger than that which we documented in our initial analysis.
The median La Niña year has ~$12 billion in damage versus ~$2 billion for the median El Niño year — a factor of six difference.
La Niña years have losses above $10 billion about 52% of the time versus 29% for El Niño years, a 1.8× gap, about what we reported in 1999.
ENSO shifts the odds without removing the possibility of extreme losses. Also, about 40% of years are neutral, also with large variability in losses. A very large loss year can strike in any ENSO phase when a major hurricane meets an exposed coast.
3. The global picture
Summing all six tropical cyclone basins, the median global season generates more ACE in El Niño years than in La Niña years — about 29% higher. El Niño does not merely relocate the planet’s storm energy; it raises the total — led by the Western Pacific, which is responsible for ~40% of global ACE across years.
An El Niño therefore has both a strong Atlantic signal and a strong Pacific signal, but in different directions.
Our 1999 paper covered only U.S. losses, but it turns out those losses are a big part of the global story. The figure below shows that global insured losses are significantly influenced by whether or not the U.S. mainland experiences a major hurricane that hits a populated region.2
Significantly, at the global level, El Niño has more tropical cyclone activity but global economic losses are generally higher in La Niña years.
Where storms hit matters more than how many or how strong. The Pacific generates most of the world’s cyclone energy, but landfalls there cross coastlines with far lower insured values than the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts. So global losses follow the Atlantic ENSO signal, not the global pattern.
The figure above shows that separating years by whether a major hurricane struck the U.S. coast reveals a huge insured loss difference: U.S. major hurricane landfall years have a median insured loss of ~$119 billion; non-landfall years have about ~$47 billion — about a 2.5× difference.
The five costliest years — 2017 (Harvey, Irma, Maria), 2024 (Helene, Milton), 2022 (Ian), 2011, and 2021 (Ida) — all featured major U.S. landfalls, and four of the five were La Niña years.
4. What to expect for 2026?
NOAA has issued an El Niño Advisory, and forecasters expect the event to strengthen into winter, perhaps into a very significant El Niño event.
The Atlantic hurricane season thus far has been mostly dormant: Through 27 July, the Atlantic has produced 2 named storms, no hurricanes, and about 5.3 units of ACE — about 35% the typical year-to-date.
Data courtesy of our new Global Tropical Cyclone website, which tracks global tropical cyclones in real-time every day with data going back many decade around the world.
The rest of the world is well above the long-term average with global ACE at about 365 units year-to-date, about 29% above the 1980–present average — and growing fast. A quiet Atlantic and busy Pacific is exactly what the data record would lead us to expect.
If El Niño deepens through the August–October Atlantic hurricane season peak, as expected, history suggest that odds shift toward a below-average U.S. damage season with about a two-to-one chance of a sub-$10-billion loss year. A strong El Niño could see very low U.S. losses — as in 1982 and 1997, years with significant El Niño events.
In contrast, 2004 — an El Niño year, but with 4 hurricane landfalls in Florida (and 3 of them major) causing more than $100 billion in normalized losses — showed that an exposed coast can experience a catastrophic year in any ENSO phase. ENSO changes the odds, but does not eliminate risk.
For decision-makers who act on probabilistic information — reinsurers and commodity brokers among them — a developing strong El Niño has a signal in the Atlantic basin with economic value. However, for anyone on an exposed coastline, in any basin, don’t let your guard down, a big one could hit in any year.
For THB paid subscribers an Excel spreadsheet can be found at the bottom of this post with all sources and data used in the analyses and figures above.
Data sources and references: North Atlantic and global tropical cyclone activity from NHC/CPHC HURDAT2 and JTWC best tracks, via global-tropical-cyclones.com (through 27 July 2026). Global landfall maps from IBTrACS v04r00 (NOAA NCEI), all basins, 1980–2020. Normalized U.S. hurricane damage from Weinkle et al. (2018), extended through 2025 (2024 dollars), building on Pielke and Landsea (1998) and (1999). Global insured catastrophe losses from Swiss Re sigma and Munich Re NatCatSERVICE annual reviews (nominal USD, 2010–2025). ENSO phase by August–September–October Oceanic Niño Index (ONI v5). ENSO status from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center; 2026 Northwest Pacific context from Munich Re. References: Pielke, R. A., Jr., and C. W. Landsea, 1999: La Niña, El Niño, and Atlantic Hurricane Damages in the United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 80, 2027–2033. Camargo, S. J., and A. H. Sobel, 2005: Western North Pacific Tropical Cyclone Intensity and ENSO. Journal of Climate, 18, 2996–3006.
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