RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The next named storm of the 2026 hurricane season could soon approach the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Coast.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported Tuesday the formation of an area of low pressure hundreds of miles from the Cape Verde Islands, producing rain showers and thunderstorms in the region. That system is expected to move westward toward North America and will "likely become a tropical depression during the next day or two." The NHC gives the system a 70 percent chance of formation in the Atlantic, though the forecast notes conditions less conducive to storm formation throughout this week.
The system, currently known as Invest 96L, could become Tropical Storm Dolly if it strengthens enough to earn a name. Dolly is next on the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season's list of names.
Tropics remains heavily dominated by the Pacific activity as we expect in El Nino. NEW invest #96L has the best chance in the Atlantic to become our next named storm there (unless 95L spins up today), but still Google Deepmind hardly does anything with it, while some of our other… pic.twitter.com/vk770PlJNV
Michael Lowry, a Hurricane Specialist and Storm Surge Expert at WPLG-TV in Miami, reported Tuesday that there is only an "outlier" scenario in which the upcoming storms make major landfall in the United States. The storm will likely only impact slices of the Caribbean if there is any significant landfall at all, continuing a recurring pattern through this summer.
The Colorado State University (CSU) Department of Atmospheric Science, the nation's leader in hurricane forecasting, released its final forecast for the 2026 hurricane season earlier this month. CSU reported just two named storms across the United States and the Caribbean in 2026 to date (Tropical Storm Arthur and Tropical Storm Bertha), and the Department predicted seven additional named storms through the end of November. The report predicted a nine percent chance of a major hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast through the rest of hurricane season, well below the full-season average from 1880 to 2020. The entire U.S. coastline has a 16 percent chance of being struck by a major storm, down from the previous 140-year average of 43 percent.
The El Niño weather pattern has brought rising sea temperatures and a tropical Atlantic vertical wind shear, dampening storm formation in recent months. The pattern will likely weaken another threat this week as Invest 96L approaches.
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