Wx4cast: New changes for the National Hurricane Center's forecast cone!

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, with the most active period running from August through October. When sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic basin are at the warmest. The peak of the season is September 10.

The 2025 hurricane system Season season Produced 13 name storms, 5 hurricanes 4 Major hurricanes, Including 3 category 5 hurricanes. For comparison, an average season is considered 14 name storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes. The World Meteorological Organization officially retired the name Melissa, due to her incredible impact in 2025. They replaced it with Molly which will be used on the 2031 naming list.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (NOAA) will release the hurricane outlook for 2026 in May.

My outlook last season Perform fairly well and came close but it was off in some areas.

My 2025 hurricane outlook

This post is going to cover changes in the way the forecast cone will look and display important information. It's hope that these changes Will make the forecast easier to understand and convey the information better.

Based on feedback from last seasons experimental cone. The National Hurricane Center has initiated a few changes in the way the cone will look for this season.

The changes for 2026 won't involve wind speeds or categories or anything like that. Instead it focuses on the forecast and the outlook.

The National Hurricane Center Started making changes to the hurricane tracking cone graphics beack in 2024 and 2025. Here is an how the cone looked with hurricane Ian back in 2024.

Courtesy National Hurricane Center

For the first time the operational forecast cone will display tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings for inland areas not just the coast. This is very important as a hurricanes impact doesn't stop at the coast and instead extends well inland. Different colors will indicate when tropical storm and hurricane watches will be in effect, for both the coast and areas inland. These watches are typically issued about 48 hours in advance of the expected arrival. This is when you should be starting work on your preparations for the storm. A warning is issued 36 hours or less in advance of the expected arrival. This indicates that dangerous impacts are expected and action should be taken. Y'all might notice that this is different than severe weather watches and warnings. But watches and warnings mean different things when talking about severe weather and tropical weather. In addition There will also be shading that indicate areas where watches and warnings overlap.

Here is an example of what the new cone is going to look like for 2026

Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center

Another thing you will likely notice is the tracking cone is now all the same color. Before the NHC segmented the cone between the 3 day and 7 day track forecast. But that just added a lot of clutter and contributed to some confusion.

For those who would like to know how these cones are created. The rest of y'all can skip it

Before 2026 the NHC used circles to design the tracking cone. Each one of these circles represented a 12 , 24 , 36 hour et cetera period point in the forecast. These circles were based on the idea of errors that could occur in any direction. Each circle Illustrate 2⁄3 of the official track errors for that window of time over the previous 5 years. For this reason the circles get larger the further out in time you get. Together these circles become the cone. Using this method, the forecast track would fall within the circles 2⁄3 of the time.

Here are some examples that showed how the cone was assembled in the past

Starting this year instead of circles the NHC is going to be using ellipses. An ellipse is like a narrow oval. These ellipses will take into account the speed and direction of the storm and how that could change. Hopefully giving a better indication of where the storm will move. Another change in how this is done Is that the national hurricane center is going to be using the 90th percentile of along and cross track errors.

Below is an example of how this will look based on hurricane Milton's track. The red dotted lines represent how the old system of circles worked in laying out the track forecast cone. The white shading cone is based on the along and cross track errors using the ellipses. The red dashed lines are for reference purposes only and will not be used on the 2026 tracking cone.

While the tracking cone is going to be around 23% wider It also means that the hurricane should stay within the tracking cone boundaries 90% of the time. Just change The forecast Would change from around 66% to around 90% as far as accuracy in the overall forecast track.

Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center.

This change in how the forecast points are made will hopefully make the cone much more accurate.

Another change for the Atlantic basin this year.

This season the NHC will also be changing the way they display the ads of development.

How the graphical outlook looked in the past

Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center

The National Hurricane Center has used a color code to show the probability of development for an area being monitored for several years. The low risk was denoted with a yellow X indicating 0-30 percent chance for development The moderate risk was denoted by a orange X indicating 40-60 percent chance of development, The high risk was denoted by a red X that indicated the risk for development was 70-100 percent.

This season the NHC be using a gray X to signify a 0% chance of development over the next few days for an area being observed. It's important to still monitor that area but it's not of an immediate concern. The NHC hopes that this change will help indicate what's going on in a better way.

Below is an example of how this would look.

Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center

One thing that can't be indcated, is the idea of, if you're outside of the cone you're not in danger of being impacted by the storm. In the past this false sense of security led to deaths. And reporting thing to remember is, the tracking cone shows where the NHC thinks the center of the storm most likely could track. But as we have seen in the past hurricanes can change track quickly. In addition to, wind, wave and other impacts can occur well outside of the tracking cone.

One other change for 2026 will be the storm surge graphic for the Hawaiian islands.

Even though Hawaii is in the Pacific I do want to briefly cover the change that will occur there.

For 2026 the storm surge graphic is going to look slightly different, In the hopes that it will drastically improve awareness.

This year NHC is going to be using the same storm surge watch and warning graphic they have been using for the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands. Here is an example of how that will look for main Hawaiian Islands.