Hurricane tracker 2026: live storm map, paths, and alerts

Satellite reconnaissance forms the first layer of modern hurricane tracking. Geostationary satellites sit 35,000 km above the equator and provide continuous visible and infrared imagery of the same ocean region, letting forecasters watch a storm's cloud structure evolve in near-real time. Polar-orbiting satellites pass closer to the surface and carry microwave sensors that penetrate cloud tops to measure eye structure, eyewall temperature, and precipitation intensity — data that geostationary sensors cannot capture.

Hurricane Hunters add ground truth that satellites alone cannot provide. NOAA P-3 Orions and Air Force C-130J aircraft fly directly into the eye of active storms, releasing GPS dropsondes — instrument packages that parachute through the storm, transmitting wind, pressure, temperature, and humidity readings every second. A single storm penetration mission can generate hundreds of soundings that tighten forecast models dramatically.

Those models produce the famous spaghetti diagrams: overlapping track lines from different global and regional models, each driven by slightly different initial conditions. When models agree, confidence is high. When they diverge sharply, forecasters communicate uncertainty through the official cone of uncertainty — a graphic showing where the storm's center has roughly a 60-70% probability of tracking, not the maximum extent of damaging winds. Reading the cone correctly is essential: the storm's dangerous winds and storm surge extend far outside the cone's edges.

Track forecast accuracy has improved roughly 50% over the past 25 years, with 3-day track errors now comparable to what 1-day errors were in the 1990s. Intensity forecasting — predicting changes in wind speed, especially rapid intensification — remains the hardest challenge, as small-scale ocean and atmospheric features that models struggle to resolve can cause a storm to gain 50 mph in a single day.

Storm surge kills more people in hurricanes than any other hazard, accounting for roughly half of all hurricane fatalities — yet it consistently receives less public attention than wind speed. Surge is not waves on top of existing water. It is an abnormal rise of ocean water pushed ashore by a storm's wind and low pressure, arriving like a rapid tide that does not recede for hours.

How high the surge climbs depends on four factors working together: the storm's forward speed (slower storms pile up more water), the angle of approach to the coast (a perpendicular approach maximizes surge), the shape of the seafloor and coastline (gently sloping continental shelves and funnel-shaped bays amplify surge dramatically), and tidal timing (a surge arriving at high tide can be several feet higher than one arriving at low tide).

The most destructive surge in recorded U.S. hurricane history struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast when Hurricane Katrina (2005) made landfall as a Category 3. Despite weakening from its Category 5 peak, the surge measured up to 28 feet along the Mississippi shoreline — enough to obliterate entire communities like Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian that had stood for over a century. Most of Katrina's 1,392 deaths were drownings, not wind injuries.

Surge is so lethal for three reasons: people habitually underestimate it because they conflate category with water threat, it arrives and fills structures faster than people can escape, and in flat coastal terrain it can push miles inland along rivers and bays. Every county's surge risk map and evacuation zone is the single most important document for coastal residents to understand before hurricane season. The global disaster tracker documents post-landfall flooding events as they unfold.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30. Peak activity concentrates in a six-week window from mid-August through late September, when sea surface temperatures across the main development region (MDR) between Africa and the Caribbean reach their annual maximum. The statistical peak of the season falls on September 10.

Forecasters weight several factors when projecting overall season activity. The state of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most reliable seasonal signal: La Niña conditions reduce upper-level wind shear across the Atlantic, allowing storms to organize more easily, while El Niño years typically suppress Atlantic activity. Sea surface temperatures in the MDR and Gulf of Mexico set a ceiling on how intense storms can become — anomalously warm waters in 2023 and 2024 contributed to rapid intensification events that surprised forecasters. African easterly wave activity, the source of most Atlantic tropical disturbances, varies year to year based on Saharan dust outbreaks and jet stream positioning.

Above-average seasons produce more named storms but are disproportionately dangerous when a higher fraction of those storms reach major (Category 3+) status. Below-average seasons can still produce catastrophic landfalling hurricanes if even one active storm tracks toward a populated coast. The Eastern Pacific season runs May 15 through November 30; the Western Pacific typhoon season operates year-round with a summer-fall peak, and its storms — called typhoons — follow the same physics as Atlantic hurricanes under a different name. See our tornado tracker and tsunami warnings pages for companion severe weather monitoring.

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale rates storms from Category 1 to Category 5 based on maximum sustained wind speed. Understanding what each category means in practical damage terms — not just numbers — is what makes the scale actionable for evacuation decisions.

Category 1 (74–95 mph): Some damage to roofs, gutters, vinyl siding, and large tree branches. Well-built frame homes withstand Category 1 winds reasonably well, but power outages lasting several days are common as lines go down.

Category 2 (96–110 mph): Major roof and siding damage to well-built homes. Shallow-rooted trees are uprooted, blocking roads. Near-total power loss is likely, with outages lasting days to weeks before restoration crews can reach all areas.

Category 3 (111–129 mph): Devastating damage. This is the major hurricane threshold. Well-built homes sustain significant structural damage. Electricity and water are unavailable for days to weeks. Areas may be uninhabitable during repairs.

Category 4 (130–156 mph): Catastrophic damage. Most of the roof structure and some exterior walls collapse on well-built homes. Power poles snap. Most trees are felled. Large areas become uninhabitable for weeks to months.

Category 5 (157+ mph): Total destruction of frame homes. Power infrastructure is destroyed rather than damaged. Areas can remain uninhabitable for months. Only a handful of Atlantic storms have made U.S. landfall at Category 5: Camille (1969), Andrew (1992), and the Labor Day Hurricane (1935).

A critical limitation: the scale measures wind only. Storm surge, rainfall, tornadoes embedded in spiral bands, and inland flooding — which together cause the majority of hurricane deaths — are invisible in the category number. A Category 1 hurricane stalling over a city can produce more flooding deaths than a fast-moving Category 4.

Hurricane Katrina (2005) made landfall near the Louisiana-Mississippi border as a Category 3, but its storm surge — generated when it was still a Category 5 over the Gulf — obliterated the Mississippi coastline with walls of water up to 28 feet high. Levee failures flooded 80% of New Orleans. The official death toll reached 1,392, and $125 billion in damage reshaped U.S. emergency management, leading to the complete reorganization of FEMA's disaster response doctrine.

Hurricane Harvey (2017) made landfall in Texas as a Category 4, then stalled over the Houston metropolitan area for four days, dropping more than 60 inches of rain — the highest tropical cyclone rainfall total ever recorded on U.S. soil. Harvey demonstrated a fundamental limitation of wind-speed categories: the storm's winds were long gone when tens of thousands of homes flooded. It became the costliest tropical cyclone in U.S. history at the time, with $125 billion in damage.

Hurricane Maria (2017) struck Puerto Rico as a Category 4, knocking out the entire power grid and destroying nearly 80% of the island's crop value. The official death toll, initially reported as 64, was revised by a Harvard study to approximately 2,975 — most deaths resulting from disrupted medical care, contaminated water, and generator failures in the months after the storm. Maria exposed how existing infrastructure vulnerability multiplies a hurricane's human cost long after winds subside.

Hurricane Ian (2022) rapid-intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 4 in roughly 24 hours before striking Fort Myers, Florida, with a storm surge reaching 18 feet in some areas. With $113 billion in insured losses, Ian ranked among the costliest Atlantic hurricanes on record and renewed urgent debate about whether official forecast models adequately communicate rapid-intensification risk to communities with less than 24 hours to prepare. For aggregated disaster context, see the global disaster tracker.