PENSACOLA, FLORIDA — After a virtually silent September, the Atlantic’s first hurricane of 2026 is likely to form later this week, and it is setting its sights on the northern Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center now gives the system in the Bay of Campeche a 90 percent chance of tropical formation. Forecasters expect it to become Tropical Storm Isaias by later Wednesday and potentially reach hurricane strength by Friday, before making landfall Saturday, October 10, somewhere between New Orleans and the Big Bend of Florida. The greatest risk of direct impacts is focused between Mobile, Pensacola and Tallahassee.
The System Right Now
The system has not technically formed yet. Thunderstorms flared up overnight over the Bay of Campeche, the part of the Gulf west of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, but it still lacks a low-level center, the closed swirl of winds that storms organize around.
For now, there is a broad surface trough, a long strip of low pressure, with a kink in the winds that has not fully closed off. Forecasters say once a center forms, the system should come together much more quickly.
Hurricane Hunters Heading In
A NOAA Gulfstream jet was scheduled to fly across the Gulf on Tuesday afternoon to sample the environment around the storm. That data will be fed into computer models to improve forecasts.
An Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft is then expected to fly directly into the system on Wednesday to measure its winds and pressure…