Nation's top hurricane forecaster reveals 5 urgent messages for 2026
Nation's top hurricane forecaster reveals 5 urgent messages for 2026
Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAYSun, May 31, 2026 at 10:02 AM UTC
0
Hurricane season starts June 1 and the staff at the National Hurricane Center faces one major task in the months to come.
Their mission? Provide consistent and accurate information that stands out above a flood of conflicting and confusing social media messages to convince you to take action when a storm comes knocking.
Center director Michael Brennan and his colleagues within the National Weather Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are keenly aware of their challenges. They've got a new forecast map and are launching a suite of new or products for this season.
As Brennan prepares for his fourth season as center director, he shared with USA TODAY five key things he hopes the tens of millions at-risk from hurricanes will do in the weeks ahead. Brennan has sharpened his message over the years, though it remains consistent. This season he's placing more emphasis on preparing for lengthy power outages and other deadly conditions after the storm — and preventing communications breakdowns that can make an already bad situation even worse.
Know your risk, have a plan
Have the supplies you'll need
Have a communications plan
Prepare for prolonged power outages and the post-storm environment
Rely on trusted sources
"The risk is there every year for hurricane impacts, regardless of what the seasonal forecast looks like, regardless of whether there's an El Niño or a La Niña," Brennan said. "Even though recent hurricane seasons have been busy, most people haven't experienced the very worst conditions where they live. It doesn’t take a major hurricane landfall for there to be significant impacts."
"Especially after a year like 2025, where we didn't have a big U.S. hurricane landfall for the first time in a decade, you don't want people to sort of think that risk has decreased because it certainly hasn't."
"There are a lot of things to think about," he said. The good news is, "a lot of these preparations you're making for hurricanes work for any other kind of disaster too."
Know your risk, have a plan
"It starts out by knowing if you live in a storm surge or hurricane evacuation zone," Brennan said. "That really forms the basis of your hurricane plan, because if you're going to be asked to leave your home, you have to be ready for that, and this is the time to get ready."
"Rainfall flooding continues to be the biggest cause of fatalities in tropical storms and hurricanes in the U.S. over the last 10 years, by a pretty large margin. That has almost nothing to do with how strong the storm is from a wind perspective, whether it's a hurricane or a tropical storm, Category 4 or 5. It just matters how long it rains and how hard it rains. It can be a tropical depression, remnants of a tropical system, or a system that hasn't formed yet."
"Know your risk from inland flooding, and that can happen anywhere, not just a coastal problem, but hundreds of miles inland, as we saw from Helene and other storms. So know if you live in a flood-prone area, just like know if you live in a storm surge zone."
How you can make a family disaster plan.
Learn your flood risk.
See the National Hurricane Center's storm surge risk maps.
Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center, discusses what he hopes people will do to be prepared for storms during the 2026 hurricane season, during the National Hurricane Conference at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando on March 31, 2026.Have the supplies you'll need
"You have to have that emergency supply kit," including nonperishable food, water, he said. "You don't have to go out and buy everything at once. You can buy a few things a week." That includes medicines and batteries.
"People underestimate how dependent we are on (our cellphones)," he said, waving his phone around. They're used for communication, navigation and even to monitor health conditions and medical devices, which can mean a life and death situation if the phone goes dead, he added. "So make sure you have ways to keep power and charge devices."
What should be in your emergency kit?
Have a communications plan
"How is your family going to communicate if your cellphones don't work anymore?" Brennan said. "That's a really, really interesting question for a lot of people because that's the only way a lot of people communicate."
Advertisement
"You have a family emergency plan. If you can't get in touch with everybody, do you have a place you're all going to meet? Set that all up now."
"Think about somebody who has special needs or has a disability or a challenging situation that may not be able to communicate effectively in a disaster," he said. "How are we going to take care of them and keep them safe?"
∎ How to make a plan by location.
Preparing your home for a hurricane: The ultimate checklist
Prepare for prolonged power outages and the post-storm environment
"The other thing to think about is post-storm safety," Brennan said. "When you're asked to evacuate an area, that probably means there aren't going to be a lot of services there in the aftermath of the storm. ... You may not have first responders there. You may not have medical care if you have an emergency."
"In Florida in particular, we've seen a very high number of post-storm or indirect fatalities after particularly major hurricane landfalls," he said. Power outages leave people in brutal heat and vulnerable in an unsafe environment where accidents related to cleanup and generator safety occur, he said. "If you are asked to leave, it's to get out of the storm surge zone, but it's also to keep you out of that very dangerous post-storm environment too."
Planning to yourself and family in a power outage.
Hurricane season 2026: These 3 places are 'overdue' for a direct hit from a hurricane
Rely on trusted sources
"The information environment right now is complex," Brennan said. "There's more information coming at people than ever before, but it's often difficult to sort through and to distinguish credible sources of information from those that may not be."
"Know who your local emergency management officials are in your county or city. They're the people in your community that are going to tell you what you need to stay safe. Local government officials. ... Your local National Weather service office. Hurricanes.gov, the Hurricane Center."
"Find those sources of information. Follow them on social media, because when a storm threatens, there's going to be a flood of information that's going to roll right into your social media feeds and a lot of that can be a lot to sort through, people posting model forecasts that may or may not be consistent with the official forecast."
How to find your local weather service office
Contributing: Graphic journalist Jennifer Borresen, USA TODAY.
Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, covers hurricanes, violent weather, climate change, the environment and other news. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NHC director shares warnings for hurricane season 2026
Source: “AOL Breaking”
