The National Hurricane Center is tracking two areas of low pressure in the Atlantic this morning, and the basin’s climatological peak arrives on September 10. Neither system threatens land today. That gap is the window pet bird owners on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts should be using.
What the National Hurricane Center is watching today
In the Tropical Weather Outlook issued at 8:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, August 25, forecaster Pasch flagged two systems and gave neither a track toward land.
The first, designated AL95, is a broad low a few hundred miles east-northeast of Bermuda, moving north to north-northeast at 15 to 20 mph. Its shower activity is disorganized, and the NHC puts its formation chance at 40 percent through both 48 hours and seven days, with hostile conditions expected to end its chances by Wednesday.
The second, AL96, sits a few hundred miles south-southeast of the Cabo Verde Islands. That one is the more likely of the pair: a 70 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression within a day or two as it moves west to west-northwest across the tropical Atlantic. Conditions there could turn less favorable by the weekend.
So the reason to pay attention this week is the calendar, not these two lows.
A below-normal season is still a season
The NHC’s own tropical cyclone climatology puts the peak of the Atlantic season on September 10, with most activity falling between mid-August and mid-October. Measured across 1991 to 2020, an average season produces 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
2026 is running behind that pace. NOAA’s National Weather Service updated its outlook on August 6 and kept the forecast below normal: 7 to 13 named storms, 2 to 6 hurricanes and 0 to 2 major hurricanes, with a 75 percent chance the season finishes below average. Only Arthur and Bertha have been named so far, and no hurricane has formed.
Forecasters attribute the slow pace to El Niño, which increases the wind shear that tears storms apart. “When El Niño emerges, it usually becomes the dominant factor in total hurricane season activity,” said Matt Rosencrans, NOAA’s lead hurricane season forecaster, who added that this one keeps strengthening month by month.
None of that is a promise about your address. NWS director Ken Graham made the point using Arthur as the example: “Inland rainfall is a major cause of damage from tropical storms and hurricanes,” he said, which is why he tells people to prepare for any storm forecast to reach them, hurricane or not.
The carrier is the part you cannot improvise
Dr. Cynda Crawford, a veterinarian at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine and medical director of the university’s Veterinary Emergency Treatment Services, tells exotic pet owners to keep a seven-day supply of food, the habitat itself and written step-by-step care instructions ready, whether they shelter in place or leave.
For a bird that means a carrier the animal could live in for several days, not the box you use for a twenty-minute vet run. It has to take a thin sheet or towel over the top for shade and security, and it should carry your phone number and your avian vet’s on the outside.
If you have not looked closely at yours since spring, this is the week to do it. Latches loosen and perches work free quietly, and the failure shows up when the carrier is being handled by someone tired and in a hurry. Here is the ten-minute check that finds a carrier’s weak points.
What goes in the box
Crawford’s list, published by the Veterinary Center for Birds and Exotics, is specific. Seven days of dry food in airtight, waterproof containers, seven days of water, bowls, perches, bedding, resealable bags for anything opened, a cuttlebone and treats that will not spoil.
Then the paperwork, which is the part people leave until last and then skip. Medical records, a two-week supply of any medication plus a written prescription for more, microchip, tattoo or leg band numbers, and a recent photograph in case the bird has to be identified by someone else later.
That identification detail deserves a second look. Leg bands can be removed; a microchip is the only permanent identifier, and most birds over 100 grams can be chipped by an avian vet. If yours is not chipped and you live on a coast, that is a conversation to have now rather than in October.
Add a small medical kit too: gauze, scissors, styptic powder for a bleeding nail or beak, bandage material and tweezers. Our own version covers what belongs in a bird first aid kit and what to leave out of it.
Heat and escape are what actually follow the storm
Wind is rarely what hurts a companion bird. Power failure is. Birds hold a body temperature near 104 °F (40 °C) and cannot sweat, so a sealed house without air conditioning turns against them faster than most owners expect. Learn how to cool a bird down without giving it a chill before you are doing it in the dark.
The other failure is escape. Doors stand open during a load-out, carriers get passed between people, and a startled bird is gone in a second. In 2011 a Manhattan cockatiel got loose on Columbus Avenue two days before Hurricane Irene reached New York, and what his vet found four days later explained how he had stayed alive.
If it happens to you, the first two days decide most of it. Escaped birds land high and close rather than far away, and searching in the right order matters more than searching harder.
Where to check between now and October
The NHC publishes its Atlantic Tropical Weather Outlook several times a day, and it is the plainest available read on what is genuinely in the basin. Watches and warnings for your own address come from your local National Weather Service office, not from the national outlook.
Crawford’s other recommendation is the one that costs nothing today: talk to your avian vet about emergency procedures before an emergency exists. Ask where they go if their own clinic evacuates, whether they board birds during a storm, and what they want you to arrive with.
The useful thing about a quiet August is that it is the only kind of month in which any of this gets done. A packed carrier sitting in a closet is worth more than a perfect plan you intend to execute while a warning is running.
Featured illustration: AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real event, place or animal. A cockatiel perched on an open plastic pet travel carrier, with a sealed container of pellets, a water bottle, a folded towel, a steel bowl and a document folder set out beside it on a wooden floor.