Subtropical Storm Josephine weakened quickly to a post-tropical cyclone Thursday night as the storm continued to generate gusty winds and large swells along the East Coast. The system, the 10th named storm of this eerily quiet Atlantic hurricane season, was still packing maximum sustained winds of 65 mph as it headed northeast, away from the United States.
Josephine was about 235 miles east-southeast of Nantucket Thursday night, having picked up speed and moving northeast at around 17 mph. The storm is forecast to track farther east over the next couple of days.
The outer fringes of the storm, a nor’easter just a couple of days ago, have been producing gusty winds and rough surf along the New England coastline for much of the week. A gale warning has been issued for mariners and commercial vessels until 2 p.m., Friday as the storm continues to generate large ocean waves of 7 to 12 feet.
The El Niño influence
El Niño has truly altered this year’s Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons, which runs until Nov. 30.
The Atlantic has been quiet, with the Super El Niño delivering persistent above-average wind shear, which tears apart storms as they try to form, regardless of how hot the ocean might be. And as a result, we’ve seen only 10 named storms and just one hurricane, Isaias — which became a hurricane on Oct. 8, the latest first Atlantic hurricane in the satellite era (since 1966) and tied for the latest first hurricane on record to form in a season (1905).
The year 2026 will also likely wind up as the lowest recorded Accumulated Cyclone Energy season for the Atlantic, dating back to 1950. ACE is a metric used to determine how strong a hurricane season was, and with many short-lived tropical storms and just one hurricane, it makes sense why 2026 will likely be the lowest on record.
It’s been a different story on the other side of the world, where the Pacific has spawned more storms and hurricanes, making for a much more active season. As winds relaxed this summer over the Equatorial Pacific, sea surface temperatures soared to unprecedented levels — producing an eye-popping 23 named storms in the Pacific, with 12 hurricanes, of which eight strengthened to major storms. That feat will likely challenge the all-time high for the number of named Pacific storms in a season — 26 in 1992, also an El Niño year.
I will say, despite the overall quiet Atlantic season, it certainly has been a season of near misses for New England. We’ve seen one nor’easter push through the region in late September that didn’t have any tropical components, yet if the storm had formed a couple hundred miles to the south, we would have been looking at a potential repeat of Hurricane Bob, which struck our region in 1991.
Other than that, we’ve had two other potential disturbances fortunately get swept away from the region before anything materialized.
Ken Mahan can be reached at ken.mahan@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @kenmahantheweatherman.