Bryan Norcross: Looking for the end of the 2026 hurricane season
The odds are in favor of the Atlantic hurricane season being over, meanwhile the Pacific is still cranking out storms,
Hurricane Vance to rapidly intensify into major storm, while Champi threatens Taiwan and Japan
Vance strengthened into a hurricane early Friday, becoming the 13th hurricane in the Pacific Basin this season as it approaches Mexico next week. Hurricane Vance is now forecast to rapidly intensify into a major hurricane by Friday night, which would be the basin's 10th Category 3 or stronger storm this year. Meanwhile, monster Typhoon Champi still has sustained winds of 120 mph after tying Super Typhoon Sinlaku earlier this week as the strongest storm to form in any basin in 2026.
Last updated at 9:18 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026.
Mother Nature is trying hard to wrap up Hurricane Season 2026 in the Atlantic. The El Niño-powered jet stream is ripping across the Gulf, the Caribbean, and the tropical Atlantic prohibiting anything from developing under it. It's a wintertime look.
The only thing that gives us pause is the two bands of fast-moving air – the polar jet stream and the subtropical jet stream – that are gyrating wildly as opposed to flowing more uniformly west to east. When they take a wavy path like vigorously shaking a garden hose up and down, extreme weather can result. The peaks push unusually warm weather far north, and the dips pull unusually cool air to the south.
Those contrasts in the air temperature energize non-tropical storms like the nor'easters we've recently experienced along the East Coast, but also the extreme parade of storms into the southwestern U.S. Their energetic dips can also trigger severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in unusual places.
No tropical development forecasted in the Atlantic (Bryan Norcross / FOX Weather)
As we saw with Josephine, sometimes vigorous non-tropical storms can stall and evolve into named systems. There is no sign of that in the long-range computer forecasts, but it's always a possibility as long as the ocean water is warm enough, which it will still be into November.
Recall Hurricane Nicole, which made landfall in Central Florida and pounded the beaches in November of 2022. It started as a sharp dip in the jet stream that wandered south into the warm waters of the Caribbean. It drifted north over the warm ocean east of the Bahamas and evolved into a tropical storm and eventually a hurricane.
It's that kind of weird stuff that can happen, although this year, with the jet stream blasting across the Caribbean, the pockets of opportunity are many fewer.
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There's a rule of meteorology that says when the jet stream is excited – meaning it's highly wiggly – unusual and extreme weather is more likely to occur.
We'll see. But the odds favor the Atlantic season being over.
In the Pacific
Hurricanes are still forming in the extra-warm Pacific waters off Mexico. Hurricane Vance is the latest. It is forecast to reach at least Category 3 strength as it heads in the general direction of west-central Mexico, as so many storms have this year.
Vance is likely to weaken before it reaches the vicinity of the coast somewhere near Manzanillo next week. Everyone there should stay well-informed.
Hurricane Vance stats (Bryan Norcross / FOX Weather)
The western Pacific is still cranking out mega storms. Typhoon Champi is going to track very close to Taipei, Taiwan, tomorrow. Thankfully, it has weakened dramatically from its monster Category 5 self.
Even if the Atlantic hurricane season ends, tropical development in the Pacific is likely to continue.