The tropics turned unusually active across the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, with a rare trio of Northern Hemisphere systems churning at once even as the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the entire Southern Hemisphere stayed quiet. Hurricane Fausto churned toward Hawaii as a weakening Category 2 storm, Tropical Storm Genevieve was rapidly intensifying off the coast of Mexico and was forecast to become the Eastern Pacific’s first major hurricane of the season, and Typhoon Noul — known in the Philippines as Kiyapo — was bearing down on southern China after clearing the Philippine Area of Responsibility. Outside the Pacific, forecasters at every major warning center agreed on one point: the world’s other tropical basins were largely taking a breather.

Atlantic

The Atlantic basin was silent Saturday, with no tropical depressions, storms or hurricanes anywhere on the map and none expected to develop before early August. The lull follows the demise of Tropical Storm Bertha, which made two landfalls along the Gulf Coast near the Texas-Louisiana state line before dissipating over Texas on July 24, dumping heavy rain and leaving behind a flash-flood threat across the Southeast that persisted after the storm itself was gone. Veteran hurricane analyst Bryan Norcross said dry, dusty air and hostile upper-level winds are dominating the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean, suppressing any organization even as seasonal forecasters continue to call for a below-average 2026 hurricane season overall.

Eastern & Central Pacific

Hurricane Fausto, the season’s first hurricane, was centered late Friday near 18.8 degrees north, 135.1 degrees west — about 1,305 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii — with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph and a minimum central pressure of 971 millibars. Moving west at 14 mph, Fausto is forecast to weaken gradually as it crosses into the Central Pacific basin, arriving near Hawaii around Tuesday and Wednesday as a tropical storm. Forecasters expect the storm’s center to track north of the islands, keeping the strongest winds offshore, though a high surf advisory remains in effect for south-facing shores and forecasters caution that any deviation in the track could still bring gusty winds and heavy rain.

Trailing not far behind, Tropical Storm Genevieve was located near 10.0 degrees north, 103.6 degrees west with 45 mph winds early Saturday, but forecasters at the National Hurricane Center expect rapid intensification, projecting Genevieve to reach major hurricane strength — winds near 132 mph — by Monday before gradually weakening as it curves toward higher latitudes off Mexico’s Pacific coast. Genevieve would be the Eastern Pacific’s first major hurricane of 2026.

The basin’s earlier system, Post-Tropical Cyclone Elida, dissipated over the open waters west of Baja California in the past week after sending dangerous surf and rip currents to the coasts of Baja California and Southern California — underscoring how unusually busy the Eastern Pacific has been this month.

Western Pacific

In the Western Pacific, Typhoon Kiyapo — known internationally as Noul — strengthened into a typhoon Saturday morning as it cleared the Philippine Area of Responsibility roughly 320 kilometers west of Basco, Batanes, with maximum sustained winds of 120 kph (75 mph) and gusts to 150 kph. Moving west-northwest at 25 kph, Noul is forecast to strengthen further before making landfall along the southern China coast, prompting authorities in Hong Kong and southern Chinese cities to suspend public transportation and issue storm preparations ahead of its arrival. The Philippines, though no longer in the storm’s direct path, remained under Signal No. 1 across Batanes, the Babuyan Islands and parts of northern Luzon, with gale warnings and rough seas continuing along the northern seaboard as Noul enhances the southwest monsoon.

Noul follows one of the Western Pacific’s most destructive systems in years: Super Typhoon Bavi, which reached Category 5-equivalent strength in early July, battered Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, killed at least 18 people in the Philippines, and forced the evacuation of nearly 2.8 million people in China before making landfall near Taizhou and dissipating. The back-to-back systems reflect an unusually active stretch for the Western Pacific, with forecasters watching for additional development before the end of July.

North Indian Ocean

No tropical cyclone, depression or deep depression was active in either the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea on Saturday, according to the India Meteorological Department. The basin remains in a seasonal lull typical of the peak Southwest Monsoon period, when organized tropical cyclones are less common even as monsoon low-pressure areas and cyclonic circulations continue to fuel heavy rainfall. This week’s IMD bulletins pointed to circulations over Haryana, northeastern Madhya Pradesh, southwestern Rajasthan, northern Chhattisgarh and the west-central Bay of Bengal, with widespread and locally heavy-to-extremely-heavy rain forecast across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and the northeastern states over the next four to five days. None of these systems was expected to organize into a named cyclonic storm in the near term.

Southern Hemisphere

South of the equator, the tropics remained firmly in their off-season, with no active tropical cyclones in the Australian region, the South Pacific or the South Indian Ocean. Earlier this month, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology monitored a tropical low near the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea for a rare bout of out-of-season development — cyclones have formed in or near Australia’s eastern region in July only a handful of times since 1970 — but the system carried only a low chance of strengthening, and no named cyclone ultimately emerged, though it did bring heavy rain and gusty winds to the Solomons. The Southern Hemisphere’s 2025-26 season, which wound down in April, was a violent one: Cyclone Maila killed more than 30 people across the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea in early April, and Cyclone Narelle caused roughly $500 million in damage during an unusually persistent, four-landfall run across northern and western Australia in March. The next Southern Hemisphere season is not expected to begin in earnest until around November.

Sources: National Hurricane Center (nhc.noaa.gov), PAGASA, Hong Kong Observatory, India Meteorological Department, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, Fox Weather, Yale Climate Connections, Rappler, Philstar and wire reports.