At a Glance

Hurricane season usually goes through the end of November. However, the last storm of past seasons has often happened before the end of November and sometimes in December.2023 had many storms, but an average number of hurricanes. Fortunately, most of them stayed over the open Atlantic, and few tracked into the Caribbean Sea.

Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletterto get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.

T​he Atlantic hurricane season officially lasts through November, but it may have wrapped up early, and that's happened often before.

It's been q​uiet since before Halloween. Since Tammy transitioned to a post-tropical cyclone on Oct. 29, there haven't been any other storms or hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin. There also don't appear to be any areas likely to see tropical development in the next several days.

Are we done yet? The Atlantic hurricane season was defined as June 1 through November 30 in order to , according to NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. But that doesn't mean we have storms or hurricanes up until the end of November every year, or that they can't push into December.

I​n the satellite era - since 1966 - the season's last storm formed most often in October or November. The average date of the last storm forming in those 57 years was November 5.

As senior meteorologist discussed in a previous piece, .

However, one third of hurricane seasons since 1966 - 19 years - had a storm form after November 15. Most recently, that happened in 2019 (Nov. 19) and 2016 (Nov. 21).

S​o, it's probably still a bit too soon to declare there won't be a last-gasp storm.

(Data: NOAA/NHC)

If it happened, where would that most likely occur? We'll keep our eyes on the western Caribbean Sea and southwestern Atlantic, areas that have spawned tropical development in past Novembers.

(Further beef up your forecast with our detailed, hour-by-hour breakdown for the next 8 days – only available on our Premium Pro experience.)

Areas of past tropical development in November.

(Data: NOAA/NHC)

T​he U.S. threat is now very low. Despite on Florida last year, past history has shown U.S. impacts in November and December are few. That's particularly the case in an El Niño.

A​ccording to NOAA's historical database, , doing so in Florida as a tropical storm. Hurricane Ida approached the northern Gulf Coast in November 2009, but then fizzled before moving ashore, though would later help spin up a destructive East Coast storm.

T​hat's due primarily to a sharp increase in wind shear near the mainland U.S. as the colder months settle in.

(Areas of clouds are shown in white. Areas of strong wind shear, the difference in wind speed and direction with height, are shown in purple. High wind shear is hostile to mature tropical cyclones and those trying to develop.)

I​f the season ended today, here's how 2023 would measure up. A total of 20 storms formed in the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season. That makes 2023 one of only five years with as many as 20 storms, including 2020 (30), 2005 (28), 2021 (21) and 1933 (20).

H​owever, the number of hurricanes (7) and hurricanes of Category 3 or stronger intensity (3) exactly matched the latest 30-year averages.

Using a parameter called the ACE index, which doesn't just count the numbers of storms but also sums up how long they last and how intense they become, the season's tally of 145.6 was about 19% above average, according to from Phil Klotzbach, hurricane scientist at Colorado State University. That virtually matched the activity of , and well above .

Storm names used up in the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season. An unnamed subtropical storm was later found to have formed in mid-January off the U.S. East Coast.

T​here were many "fish storms". The majority of the 20 storms in the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season curled away from land in the central Atlantic Ocean, storms referred to by some meteorologists as "fish storms".

T​his dominant "fish storm track" was noted as a tendency in El Niño hurricane seasons by forecasters at Atmospheric G2 in .

T​he AG2 team also noted a tendency for fewer Gulf of Mexico storms in El Niño seasons. In 2023, only three of the 20 storms either formed or tracked into the Gulf. One of those, however, was , which tied for the strongest Florida Big Bend landfall on record.

Tracks of 2023's depressions, storms and hurricanes as of Nov. 7, 2023.

(Data: NOAA/NHC)

O​ther than Idalia, perhaps the most impactful and memorable landfalls of 2023 happened on the Eastern Pacific side, first with into Southern California and the West, followed by record-setting Category 5 pummeling of Acapulco, Mexico.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He studied physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then completed his Master's degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads and Facebook.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, .