National Hurricane Center updates forecast products ahead of 2026 season

The National Hurricane Center has unveiled a few changes to some of its forecast products that will begin in the 2026 hurricane season. This includes the shape of the forecast cone for a storm, including inland watches and warnings on the cone image, as well as marking tropical waves with a 0% chance for developing with a grey X on the tropical outlook map.

Shape of the forecast cone

The main changes to note are with the cone forecast graphic. First, the cone itself will take on more of an elliptical shape than a circular one. This is to help increase the accuracy in the long term and from update to update.

"We're moving to what's called the 90th percentile, meaning the center should only move outside that cone one tenth of the time, or 10% of the time. So there's less of a chance that the center will move outside of that new experimental cone." Robbie Berg with the National Hurricane Center told ABC13.

Eventually, the goal is to move towards a more dynamic cone that can better shift with an approaching storm.

Extended inland watches

Next, the hurricane center is now going to include inland watches and warnings in its forecast materials. Previously, the only tropical watches and warnings included in the hurricane center's product were for areas along the coast.

Now those alerts will extend farther inland. This is an effort to give a more comprehensive look at the risk a storm could pose to communities.

Tropical weather

Besides the cone, the hurricane center also has a slight revision to the tropical weather outlook. Any system with a near-zero chance of development will be marked with a grey X instead of yellow.

For Hawaii, there are now storm surge watches, warnings, flooding, and surge forecasts available for the islands.