Hurricane forecasters fear supercharged, early-season storms in 2026

Just two weeks into the 1972 hurricane season, a tropical depression formed near the Yucatán Peninsula. When it moved ashore in the Florida Panhandle just four days later as a weak Hurricane Agnes, it became – and remains – one of the costliest storms ever to strike the U.S. mainland.

Agnes, still a landmark event in Pennsylvania and New York communities even after 50-plus years, is a textbook example of the grave warnings coming from the nation's leading hurricane forecasters as the 2026 hurricane season begins. Devastating early season storms can and do occur, even during El Niño, and could happen again.

Admonitions, such as "it only takes one" and the Gulf is "a wild card," were born from storms like Agnes and Allison. Only a tropical storm when it swept ashore in Texas in 2001, Allison sits just one spot below Agnes at 23 in the list of the 25 costliest storms on record, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Agnes also underscores why Ken Graham, National Weather Service director, stresses the dangers of hurricane season to the millions who live far inland from the point of landfall.

Like 2026, a strong El Niño was developing in the Pacific Ocean when Agnes formed in 1972. The powerful climate pattern along the Equator is known for its potentially pacifying effect on Atlantic storm creation, but hurricanes can and do form, especially in the Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico before being renamed by the Trump administration.

The Gulf can be a breeding ground for storms regardless of El Niño, thanks to its warm temperatures, especially in the early summer.

But during an El Niño season, you can end up with storms in the Gulf at different times of the season, said Matthew Rosencrans, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

El Niño has the biggest impacts on Atlantic hurricanes that form deep in the tropics, so that can mean fewer storms that take days to march across the Atlantic from Africa. But in the Gulf, there may be more favorable pockets for storms to form, Rosencrans said.

Thanks to a lack of hurricane activity in 2025, the Gulf is an especially welcoming environment for storms at the moment. Surface water temperatures are just a fraction of a degree away from all-time warm records set at this time in 2024.

On May 24, sea surface temperatures in the Gulf were an average of 2.5 degrees warmer than normal for the date, according to NOAA data. The average temperature was just six-tenths of a degree below the record set for the date in 2024.

Those who live along the Gulf Coast should remember storms can develop anytime, and quickly, said Graham, former director of the National Hurricane Center.

People often suffer from a false sense of lead time, thinking big storms are going to come across the Atlantic with plenty of time, but that's not generally the case, Graham said. "Every Category 5 that's made landfall in this country was a tropical storm or less at three days out."

"They rapidly intensify and get here quickly," he said. "That preparedness early is absolutely key."

Gulf storms yield danger far inland

Storms also pick up tremendous moisture as they move over the warm Gulf. In 2001, Allison dropped rain totals up to 30 inches on the east side of Houston and in Schriever and Thibodaux, Louisiana, according to the hurricane center's post-storm report. The storm claimed 41 lives along the Gulf Coast and flooded more than 70,000 homes, causing an estimated $11.82 billion in damages, adjusted for 2024 prices.

Several studies have shown that such storms may produce even more water under a changing climate. That moisture travels with the storm, which can carry it far inland, often in an arc to the north and northeast.

A storm that makes landfall a thousand miles away on the Gulf Coast can cause enormous impacts, including flash flooding fatalities as far away as Tennessee, Virginia and the Northeastern U.S. Hurricane Camille in 1969, another legendary landfalling storm in the Gulf, caused nearly as many fatalities, if not more, in Virginia than in Mississippi where it came ashore, Graham said.

The troubles with Agnes multiplied after the weakened storm moved along the coast. It interacted with another weather system over the mainland, restrengthened and produced record-setting rain and deadly flooding from Virginia to New England, including 19 inches of rain in Pennsylvania.

A weather service report found Agnes killed more than 120 people and caused an estimated $12.52 billion in damages, when adjusted for 2024 prices. Similarly, the remnants of Hurricane Helene in 2024 also left deadly and devastating impacts hundreds of miles inland after arriving on the heels of another weather pattern over the region.

Both Helene and Agnes exemplify the particular dangers of Gulf storms and why Graham keeps sounding this message: "Early preparedness is absolutely everything. Period. End of story."

Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writes about violent weather, climate change and other news. Reach her at [email protected] or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.