🌀 Weekly Tropical Storm Tracker

Orbis Weather — Global Tropical Cyclone Roundup

ORBIS WEATHER — Week of August 18, 2026

The world’s tropical basins are telling two very different stories this week. The Atlantic, which should be stirring to life as it approaches its climatological September 10 peak, has gone almost completely silent — no active storms, no organized waves, and a National Hurricane Center outlook flatly stating that formation is “not expected during the next seven days.” The western Pacific, by contrast, is in the middle of one of its most active stretches in years, having just absorbed a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon and, as of Tuesday, tracking a pair of Philippine low-pressure areas with a high chance of spinning up within 24 hours. In between, the central Pacific delivered the week’s biggest headline: Hurricane Lala battered Hawaii with historic rainfall and widespread power outages before pulling away to sea. A strengthening El Niño remains the thread tying it all together, choking off Atlantic development with wind shear and Saharan dust even as it helps fuel unusually intense typhoon activity farther west.

Atlantic Hurricane Basin

The Atlantic has produced just three named storms so far this season — Arthur, Bertha and Cristobal — well behind the pace forecasters expect from an average year entering peak season. Arthur, a weak tropical storm, came ashore near Galveston in mid-June and was blamed for four deaths and more than $100 million in damage along the Gulf Coast. Bertha followed in late July, making landfall in Texas and dumping heavy rain across the state before weakening to a depression and dissipating inland. Cristobal, the most recent, formed in the open Atlantic on August 12, tracked harmlessly northeast toward the Azores, and was declared post-tropical within a day, never threatening land. As of Tuesday morning, the National Hurricane Center reports no tropical cyclones anywhere in the Atlantic, and its latest outlook — covering the North Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico (officially redesignated the Gulf of America by the U.S. government, though the historic name remains widely used) — calls for no formation over the next week. Colorado State University’s seasonal outlook, along with NOAA’s own guidance, continues to point toward a below-normal year, with a strengthening El Niño acting as the primary brake on development.

Eastern Pacific Storms

The eastern Pacific is technically quiet as well, with the National Hurricane Center listing no active systems as of Monday night, but two areas are on the agency’s radar. The first sits several hundred miles south of the southern Mexican coast, carrying a 70 percent chance of development over seven days and expected to organize into a tropical depression by this weekend as it drifts west-northwest, generally remaining offshore. The second lies well west-southwest of the tip of Baja California and is producing disorganized shower activity with a 50 percent seven-day chance of gradual development as it moves toward the central Pacific. The basin’s headline story, however, came from just across the dateline in the central Pacific: Hurricane Lala passed near the Hawaiian Islands over the weekend, dropping nearly three feet of rain on windward slopes — with totals topping 35 inches at higher elevations — and knocking out power to more than 130,000 households across the state’s three largest islands. At least one death was linked to the storm, roughly 19 homes lost roofs, and search-and-rescue crews worked flash floods that displaced residents in Naʻalehu and Waiʻōhinu. Lala weakened to tropical storm strength as it slid west of the islands but forecasters expect it to regain hurricane status by midweek over open water, with no further threat to land.

Western Pacific Typhoons

This has been an unusually active season in the western Pacific, with accumulated cyclone energy running at roughly 165 units — more than double the long-term average — and this week added to that tally. Typhoon Dolphin, which briefly reached Category 5-equivalent strength with winds above 165 mph, tore through Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and Okinawa in early August, prompting U.S. military installations there to order personnel indoors under an emergency readiness condition, before making a second landfall in China’s Zhejiang province and bringing tropical-storm-force winds and flooding concerns to Shanghai. It has since weakened to Category 1-equivalent strength. Typhoon Chan-hom followed close behind, tracking northwest from Wake Island toward Japan’s Pacific coast. Most recently, a system south of Japan executed a sharp retrograde turn toward Honshu in mid-August but never strengthened past tropical-storm-equivalent winds, weakening back into a tropical depression near Minamitorishima by August 16 without ever earning an international name. Attention has now shifted to the Philippines, where PAGASA’s Tuesday morning bulletin flagged two low-pressure areas — one inside and one just outside the Philippine Area of Responsibility — both carrying a high chance of becoming tropical depressions within 24 hours. Any development would arrive on top of weeks of punishing southwest monsoon (habagat) rain that has already swamped Metro Manila; more than 200 millimeters fell in a single five-hour stretch on Monday, nearly half of what Typhoon Ondoy dumped on the capital in 2009.

Caribbean Threats

No storms or organized disturbances currently threaten the Caribbean. Two disturbances that emerged in the Atlantic’s Main Development Region earlier this month — designated Invests 92L and 93L — had been forecast to track generally toward the Lesser Antilles and the northeastern Caribbean, prompting authorities in St. Kitts and Nevis and other Leeward Islands to monitor them closely. Both lost organization and faded over open water in the days after Cristobal dissipated, sparing the islands any direct impact. Typical early-to-mid-August trade winds of 12 to 23 mph and seas of 4 to 6 feet prevail across the basin, and current atmospheric conditions remain unfavorable for new development.

Gulf of Mexico Conditions

The Gulf is quiet. The National Hurricane Center’s basin-wide outlook, which explicitly covers the Gulf, shows no disturbances being tracked and calls for no formation through the next seven days. Both Arthur and Bertha moved through or originated near the Gulf earlier this season on their way to Texas landfalls, but no comparable setup exists at the moment; the same El Niño-driven wind shear suppressing the wider Atlantic is keeping the Gulf in check as well.

Sea Surface Temperatures

Sea surface temperatures across the Atlantic’s Main Development Region are running close to seasonal norms for mid-August — a notable departure from the anomalous warmth that has characterized several recent hurricane seasons — though waters remain warm enough to support development if wind shear were to relax. Forecasters attribute the more muted ocean state, combined with a strengthening and possibly “super” El Niño, as the dominant reason activity has lagged this year. The pattern is reversed in the western Pacific, where warm water has helped fuel this season’s unusually intense typhoon activity, including Dolphin’s rapid intensification to Category 5-equivalent strength — consistent with El Niño’s typical tendency to energize the central and western Pacific while suppressing the Atlantic.

Tropical Waves to Watch

The Atlantic’s wave train has gone quiet for the moment. As of Tuesday’s outlook, the National Hurricane Center is not tracking any organized tropical waves or invests, a lull that followed Cristobal’s dissipation and the fade-out of Invests 92L and 93L in the middle of the month. African easterly waves continue to emerge off the coast every few days, as is typical for August, but persistent wind shear and a thick layer of Saharan dust have kept them from organizing. Forecasters note the pattern could loosen later this week as fresh waves move off the African coast, and with the statistical peak of hurricane season on September 10 still ahead, residents of the Lesser Antilles and the wider Caribbean are advised to keep watching the tropics even during this current lull.

Orbis Weather will continue monitoring all basins and will update this tracker next week.