The peak of hurricane season is here. What does that mean for a year that's been quiet so far?

Sept. 10 marks the annual peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. While the 2025 season has been relatively quiet so far, ABC13 Meteorologist Elyse Smith breaks down why that is and what the outlook for September and October could look like.

Up to this point, several different environmental conditions have prevented tropical storms from forming across the Atlantic. Factors like wind shear and Saharan dust have been the top influences as to why the tropics have been quiet compared to recent memory. Then, when storms formed, like Hurricane Erin and tropical storms Dexter and Fernand, those developed in the Atlantic and stayed there, traveling around the strong Bermuda High. But there's another atmospheric influence that could also account for the recent lull in activity, and that's the MJO.

The MJO, Madden-Julian Oscillation, is a wave pattern that expands across the entire globe and slowly moves from west to east. The waves are areas of rising and sinking motion in the atmosphere, which can either help or hurt weather patterns. In the tropics, areas of rising motion can lead to a sudden onset of tropical development. And when there's sinking air overhead, it's the opposite. This has been the case from mid-August through early September in the Atlantic. However, the latest model guidance shows that the MJO's phase over the Atlantic could change once again, beginning in mid-September, a sign that the tropics could come alive once more.

The Caribbean and Gulf will be areas to watch over the next three weeks for potential storm development. This is in addition to deep tropics across the central Atlantic. Following what's already occurred this season, it's unlikely any long-track storms that develop in the main development region will venture out of the Atlantic. But any tropical waves that make it to the Caribbean or Gulf could spin up on their own, with the help of the Central American Gyre.

One example of this trend was in 1996, when four tropical systems developed in the Caribbean and Gulf from mid-September to mid-November. These were either the result of waves that waited to develop until they were in the Caribbean or somehow spun up on their own. Like Tropical Storm Josephine, which formed from the remnants of a cold front that moved through the state of Texas in early October. Josphine then went on to make landfall in Florida a few days later.

That said, history begins to work in southeast Texas's favor the later we go into the season. As fall begins to settle in across the rest of the country into October, the pattern change can help bring cold fronts and a dip in the jet stream to the region. Both of these help steer away tropical systems from the western Gulf, later into hurricane season.

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