Hurricanes in the Off Season

Q: Can a hurricane happen outside hurricane season?

Yes. NHC's own words: "The official hurricane season for the Atlantic basin is from June 1 to November 30, but tropical cyclone activity sometimes occurs before and after these dates, respectively." Across 175 years of HURDAT2, named storms have been active in every calendar month, though December through May together account for only 67 storm months, fewer than June alone.

Q: Has a hurricane ever hit the US in the off season?

Not at hurricane strength. Every entry in NOAA AOML's continental US hurricane landfall list, 1851 to the present, falls in June through November. Off season systems have affected US coasts as tropical storms and depressions, but a December through May US hurricane landfall does not appear in the record.

Q: Which off season month sees the most storms?

May, with 32 named storm months in the record, followed by December with 23. Both sit against the season's edges, which is exactly what you would expect: the ocean does not switch off on November 30, it cools gradually. Deep winter is almost empty: February and March have 2 entries between them in 175 years.

Q: Is a storm forming right now?

The panel near the top of this page republishes the latest NHC public advisories and outlook, verbatim and timestamped. The National Hurricane Center publishes its Tropical Weather Outlook year round, off season included, at nhc.noaa.gov, and that is the place to check in any month.

December through May in the Atlantic record: how often storms have ignored the calendar across 175 years of NOAA data.

The official season is June 1 to November 30. NHC monitors the Atlantic year round, and so should anyone with a boat.

Off season storm months

Busiest off month

May

US hurricane landfalls Dec to May

Is there a storm anywhere right now? Go to the National Hurricane Center.

The panel just below republishes the National Hurricane Center’s own latest advisories and outlook, verbatim and timestamped. Tracks, cones and forecasts are the National Hurricane Center’s. If a storm is active or approaching, NHC is the source of official forecasts and warnings, and your emergency management agency is the source of evacuation and shelter decisions.

National Hurricane Center for current storms, forecasts, watches, and warnings
Your state emergency management agency for evacuation orders and shelter information
Ready.gov hurricane preparedness for how to prepare, in FEMA’s own words

“It only takes one hurricane (or tropical storm) to cause a disaster.” NOAA Climate Prediction Center

What NHC is saying right now

Republished verbatim from the National Hurricane Center via the National Weather Service API, with NHC’s own issuance times. For anything that matters, read it at nhc.noaa.gov where it is always current.

Loading the latest NHC products…

The off season, counted

1851 to 2025, NOAA HURDAT2

named storm months in December

7 at hurricane strength

named storm months in January

3 at hurricane strength

named storm months in February

0 at hurricane strength

named storm months in March

1 at hurricane strength

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, and the National Hurricane Center is explicit that storms do not read the calendar: tropical cyclone activity sometimes occurs outside those dates. It is rare. This page counts exactly how rare, month by month, from the 175 years of the HURDAT2 record.

The numbers

Storm activity by off season month

“The official hurricane season for the Atlantic basin is from June 1 to November 30, but tropical cyclone activity sometimes occurs before and after these dates, respectively.”National Hurricane Center, source

Month	Named storm months	At hurricane strength
December	23	7
January	7	3
February	1	0
March	1	1
April	3	0
May	32	4

Named storm activity by calendar month, Atlantic basin, 1851 to 2025, derived from NOAA HURDAT2. US landfall column from NOAA AOML’s continental US hurricane landfall list, which contains no December through May entries.

How complete is this record?

“Because of the sparseness of towns and cities before 1900 in some coastal locations along the United States, the above list is not complete for all states. Before the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts became settled, hurricanes may have been underestimated in their intensity or missed completely for small-sized systems (i.e., 2004's Hurricane Charley).”NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Hurricane Research Division, source