Tropical Storm Fay reemerges as Atlantic season breaks 112-year record

Robin Webb and Angie DiMichele, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Sep 24, 2026

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Tropical Storm Fay has redeveloped as this hurricane season breaks a 112-year record now that the Atlantic has gone without a hurricane through Sept. 21, experts said.

“If this year’s Atlantic season has no hurricanes by Nov. 30, that will be only the third such season on record, preceded by 1914 and 1907, AccuWeather reported.

Fay degenerated on Tuesday, but by Thursday was once again a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph, moving west at 7 mph in the central Atlantic, according to the hurricane center. The system is expected to continue west for the next few days, and it does not present any hazards to land.

Meanwhile, odds are high for an area of low pressure off the western coast of Africa to become tropical depression. A depression could form today or Friday as it moves northwest or north, the hurricane center said. It will have to battle the presence of strong upper-level winds that hinder storm development and would likely end its chances of developing by the weekend.

As of Thursday, the hurricane center has given it a 70% chance of developing in the next two to seven days, up from 60% earlier in the day.

Due to a strong El Niño, this is a well-below-average hurricane season that has produced just six tropical storms and no hurricanes. Hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30, passed its statistical peak on Sept. 10.

“It’s extremely unusual, of course, to get this far into the season with the Atlantic hurricane-free,” Fox Weather hurricane expert Bryan Norcross wrote on his Hurricane Intel blog. “But this week is only the mid-point of the hurricane season for South Florida, if you average landfall dates over the long-term record.”

The next storm to form in the Atlantic would be Gonzalo.