Kalshi's Pacific hurricane season board is priced for a record year. Our eight-model panel, which priced every contract without seeing a market price, sits below the market on 23 of the 24 rungs. Two major hurricanes in 48 hours, Karina and Lowell, moved the argument the market's way, but the top of the ladder still asks for the largest late-season run in 55 years of records.
The season's other open question has no weather answer at all. Lowell became a Category 3 major on the Central Pacific side of the 140th meridian, and the contracts never say which basin owns a storm that crossed the line. The only real money on the board on September 1 bet that Lowell counts as Central Pacific. The exchange has not said.
Every price below is as of September 1, 2026, 23:35 UTC. New to contracts like these? Our explainer on how hurricane prediction markets work covers what they count and how they settle.
What The Season Has Delivered
Storm counts and intensities come from the National Hurricane Center's operational best track and public advisories, and from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center's advisories on Lowell, read at 23Z on September 1, 2026.
The raw count on September 115 named storms across the Pacific, five hurricanes, four majors.
Thirteen storms have carried Eastern Pacific names, Amanda through Marie. Four became hurricanes: Fausto, a Category 2; Genevieve, a 140-knot Category 5 and still the strongest system of the year; Karina, a Category 4; and Lowell, a Category 3. Three of the four reached major strength, which the contracts define as Category 3 or stronger. Two storms formed on Central Pacific names, Lala, a Category 4 that peaked at 115 knots, and Moke, which never got past 45 knots. Both are gone from the active maps.
For three months genesis was fine and intensity was not. Through August 30 the basin had turned 12 names into two hurricanes, against a normal year that turns 15 into 8. Eight of the ten completed systems topped out between 40 and 60 knots. Iselle stalled four knots short of hurricane strength, and Julio was absorbed by Iselle two days after it was named.
Then the drought broke twice. Karina, named August 27, became a hurricane on Sunday and a 115-knot Category 4 by Monday, and peaked at 120 knots overnight. Tuesday's discussion had it weakening slowly over cooler water about 1,330 miles west of the southern tip of Baja California, with a caveat that it "could become annular" and weaken more slowly than average. The forecast carried it across 140 degrees west around September 4 at 70 knots, still a hurricane, passing north of the Hawaiian Islands with "high confidence."
Lowell, named the same day, crossed 140 degrees west on August 30 as a 45-knot tropical storm and did every bit of its strengthening in Central Pacific waters. It became a hurricane at 5 AM Hawaii time on September 1 and a 110-knot Category 3 by a 2 PM special advisory, about 520 miles southeast of Hilo. The discussion called it "rapidly intensifying" and forecast 130 knots within 24 hours, with Lowell remaining a major "throughout the remainder of the forecast period." Forecast positions ran well south of Hilo through the weekend, with swells expected to reach the islands on Wednesday.
Marie was the next test. Named at 2 AM Mountain time on September 1 southwest of Manzanillo, it was a 60-mph storm by that afternoon and was forecast to become a hurricane on Wednesday, September 2 and peak at 90 knots, a Category 2. The Hurricane Center added that it "could strengthen more quickly over the next day or two than indicated in the forecast." Marie is entirely an Eastern Pacific storm, so a Category 3 peak would move "more than 3 majors" with no boundary argument at all.
NOAA's May 21 outlook called for 15 to 22 named storms, 9 to 14 hurricanes and 5 to 9 majors, with a 70 percent chance of an above-normal season. Through September 1 the Eastern Pacific had delivered four hurricanes and three majors on its own names, plus Lala.
Why History Says The Top Of The Ladder Is Too High
The bull case is the El Nino. The Oceanic Nino Index reached +1.39 for May through July, the newest value the Climate Prediction Center has published, and its August 13 discussion puts a "greater than 90% chance of a very strong event" this fall and winter. El Nino cuts wind shear and shifts genesis west, which is exactly where Lowell became a major. In the six seasons since 1971 with an August-through-October index at or above +1.0, the Eastern Pacific averaged 10.0 hurricanes and 6.33 majors, against all-season averages of 8.82 and 4.35.
Here is what the market does not appear to have priced. All six of those El Nino seasons had banked at least four hurricanes by August 23, the panel's pricing date. 2026 had two. The six seasons that sat at two or fewer on that date, 1977, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2024, were all neutral or cool years, and they finished with an average of 5.0 hurricanes and 1.33 majors. The best finish among them was eight hurricanes, in 2001.
The two sets do not overlap. No strong El Nino season has ever been this quiet in late August, so the market and the panel are both reasoning off the edge of the record, in opposite directions. Two majors in 48 hours is what the El Nino set does, and it is the first evidence about which edge is closer to the ground.
The calendar is the other constraint. Across all 55 seasons from 1971 to 2025, the Eastern Pacific added a mean of 4.02 hurricanes and 2.05 majors after August 23. The most it has ever added is 8 hurricanes and 6 majors. "More than 9 hurricanes" needs 2026 to match that record run of eight, which three seasons have managed, 1990, 1992 and 2016, all of them neutral or cool. Three of 55 is 5.5 percent. The panel priced that contract at 6.0 percent, and on every Eastern Pacific rung it sits above the raw base rate. That lift is the El Nino getting its due. The market gives the El Nino far more, and the board shows how much.
The Board
Market prices are the midpoint of the live Kalshi bid and ask as of September 1, 2026, 23:35 UTC. The panel column is the median of eight models priced on August 23, when the basin had two hurricanes and one major; each model saw the historical record, the season to date and the settlement rules, and none saw a price. Those numbers are on the public record and stay fixed until the page re-scores, so Karina's major and Lowell's are in the market column and the "what it needs" column, and not yet in the panel's. "What it needs" uses the geographic reading, the one the market traded on; the naming reading is spelled out under the table.
| Contract | What it needs from here | Market | Panel |
|---|---|---|---|
| More Than 3 EP Majors | 2 more majors | 85.0¢ | 50.0% |
| More Than 4 EP Majors | 3 more majors | 71.5¢ | 25.5% |
| More Than 5 EP Majors | 4 more majors | 52.0¢ | 12.0% |
| More Than 6 EP Majors | 5 more majors | 37.5¢ | 4.0% |
| More Than 7 EP Majors | 6 more majors (7 since Aug 23, never done) | 20.0¢ | 1.5% |
| More Than 8 EP Majors | 7 more majors (8 since Aug 23, never done) | 13.0¢ | 0.5% |
| More Than 5 EP Hurricanes | 3 more | 92.0¢ | 76.0% |
| More Than 6 EP Hurricanes | 4 more | 86.0¢ | 56.5% |
| More Than 7 EP Hurricanes | 5 more | 76.0¢ | 32.5% |
| More Than 8 EP Hurricanes | 6 more | 64.5¢ | 17.5% |
| More Than 9 EP Hurricanes | 7 more (8 since Aug 23, the all-time record) | 53.0¢ | 6.0% |
| More Than 10 EP Hurricanes | 8 more (9 since Aug 23, never done) | 35.0¢ | 2.5% |
| More Than 11 EP Hurricanes | 9 more (10 since Aug 23, never done) | 25.0¢ | 1.0% |
| More Than 12 EP Hurricanes | 10 more (11 since Aug 23, never done) | 21.5¢ | 0.5% |
| More Than 13 EP Hurricanes | 11 more (12 since Aug 23, never done) | 18.5¢ | 0.2% |
| More Than 1 CP Hurricane | banked | 99.5¢ | 99.0% |
| More Than 2 CP Hurricanes | banked if Lowell counts here | 95.5¢ | 68.0% |
| More Than 3 CP Hurricanes | 1 more | 90.0¢ | 35.0% |
| More Than 4 CP Hurricanes | 2 more | 49.0¢ | 15.5% |
| More Than 5 CP Hurricanes | 3 more | 30.5¢ | 6.5% |
| More Than 0 CP Majors | already banked | 98.0¢ | 100.0% |
| More Than 1 CP Major | banked if Lowell counts here | 92.0¢ | 37.0% |
| More Than 2 CP Majors | 1 more | 51.0¢ | 13.0% |
| More Than 3 CP Majors | 2 more | 36.5¢ | 5.0% |
EP is the Eastern Pacific, CP the Central Pacific. Under the geographic reading a storm counts wherever it was a hurricane. Fausto was one in both basins and sits on both ladders, which gives the Central Pacific three hurricanes and two majors, and the Eastern Pacific three hurricanes and two majors. Under the naming reading, Lowell and Fausto stay with the basin that named them: the Eastern Pacific has four hurricanes and three majors, the Central Pacific one of each, and every Central Pacific rung from "more than 2 hurricanes" up becomes two storms harder.
The panel is below the market on every row but one, the Central Pacific major that Lala already banked. The widest gap is the record contract, "more than 9 Eastern Pacific hurricanes," where the market's 53-cent midpoint stands 47 points above the panel. Read it off the bid instead, the price at which someone will actually take the other side, and the gap is 37 points. That distinction matters here, because nine Eastern Pacific rungs repriced by five cents or more between August 31 and September 1 without a single contract trading. The bids barely moved. The offers left the book and came back, and the board did not change its mind.
The panel number that is most obviously stale is "more than 3 majors," the one rung where the eight seats were a genuine coin flip, spread from 42 to 58 percent around a median of 50. When the panel priced it, that contract needed three more majors, which 18 of 55 seasons have delivered after August 23. Karina has since supplied one, Lowell is the second if the naming reading wins, and on the geographic reading it is a two-major question that 34 of 55 seasons have answered yes. The market has it at 85. On every other rung the seats landed within a few points of each other, and the whole majors ladder should move up when the page re-scores.
Every seat on this panel is graded against real market settlements — records to date: Claude Fable 83% on 779 graded calls · Claude Opus 84% on 849 graded calls · Claude Sonnet 82% on 824 graded calls · GPT 84% on 6,310 graded calls · Gemini 86% on 5,009 graded calls · Kimi 82% on 2,550 graded calls · GLM 81% on 2,564 graded calls · DeepSeek 80% on 2,603 graded calls. Recomputed daily; the full scoreboard is public.
Every number in this piece gets graded in public once the market settles, and the running tally lives on the full graded scoreboard. Across weather contracts specifically, these eight seats have 2,732 graded calls between them, though the three Claude seats have 28 apiece; treat their weather record as unproven.
More live boards from the same panel: the Hurricane Fausto peak-category board is the nearest neighbor, a ladder that closed when Fausto peaked at Category 2, and the Kalshi weather markets hub sits behind both; the rung doing the trading on this page as of September 1 is "more than 2 Central Pacific hurricanes" at 95.5¢.
Which Basin Gets Lowell?
The rules settle on hurricanes "in the Eastern Pacific" or "in the Central Pacific," as confirmed by the National Weather Service. They never define the boundary between the two, and they never say what happens to a storm that crosses it. 2026 has produced that storm three times over. Fausto was named in the Eastern Pacific and was still a 75-knot hurricane when it crossed 140 degrees west on July 26, the National Weather Service's own dividing line for its Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Lowell crossed the line as a tropical storm and became a hurricane, then a major, on the far side of it. Karina was forecast to cross around September 4 at 70 knots, still a hurricane.
On September 1 the market picked a reading with the only real money on the board: 587 contracts on "more than 2 Central Pacific hurricanes," every fill a buyer taking the offer between 90 and 94 cents. That contract is banked only if Lowell counts as Central Pacific. The day's entire volume, 616 contracts, sat on Central Pacific rungs, and nothing traded on the Eastern Pacific ladders where Lowell would land under the naming reading. The crowd that showed up traded Lowell as a Central Pacific storm.
Whether the exchange agrees is still open, and three seats said on August 23 that they were blending the two readings with a discount for exactly this reason. Fable refused to price a Central Pacific rung as a certainty: "the rules define no boundary, and I will not price a settlement-convention question as a certainty." That is the sentence on this page that aged best.
The Rung That Moved 40 Cents On Zero Trades
"More than 8 Eastern Pacific majors" has traded on two days in its life, July 4 and August 19, and not since. On August 28 its book was 8 cents bid, 21 asked. On August 31 the offers were gone, the book read 10 bid and 98 asked, and the midpoint printed 54. On September 1 a single resting offer came back inside the spread and the midpoint fell to 13. Contracts traded across both moves: zero.
A midpoint that quadruples with no volume and then gives it all back with no volume is one resting order leaving and returning. The version of "the market moved from 54 to 13" is that its view of seven more majors went from somewhere between 10 cents and 98 to somewhere between 8 and 18. What the contract asks for, seven more majors in three months, has never happened after August 23 in 55 seasons. Anyone acting on a market this thin pays the spread twice.
Where The Panel Changed Its Mind
Every model priced the board on August 23, read the other seven anonymously, and priced it again. All eight revised something. The biggest single move was GLM's, which cut its Eastern Pacific majors ladder hard, taking "more than 3 majors" from 68 to 58:
The full-season El Nino major mean of 6.33 conflates pre- and post-Aug-22 pace, and this season's pre-Aug-22 pace (2 hurricanes, 1 major) is far behind the ~5.2 hurricanes and ~2.2 majors that El Niño seasons typically banked by this date. I was pricing EP majors as if the full-season El Niño boost applied entirely to the remaining season, which overstated the tail. — GLM
One correction to GLM's arithmetic, and it runs in the pace argument's favor: the six El Nino seasons had banked 2.67 majors on average by August 23, not 2.2, which puts 2026's one major on the pricing date even further behind. Opus reshaped its ladder rather than shifting it, because the El Nino record cuts both ways:
El Niño lifts the FLOOR of the remaining-add distribution — no El Niño season added fewer than 3 — but has never produced the record-class tail. So I reshaped rather than shifted. — Opus
That floor argument is the one the week rewarded. No El Nino season added fewer than three hurricanes after August 23, and 2026 has now added two in a week on the geographic count.
What Would Move The Numbers
A boundary ruling from Kalshi. A geographic ruling confirms what the 587 contracts assumed: "more than 2 Central Pacific hurricanes" and "more than 1 Central Pacific major" are done, and the Eastern Pacific ladders stay where they are. A naming ruling reverses it. Those two rungs, at 95.5 and 92 cents, go back to needing two storms and one, while "more than 3 Eastern Pacific majors" at 85 cents becomes a one-major ask. There was no ruling as of September 1.
The September 10 ONI print. The Climate Prediction Center's next diagnostic discussion carries the June-through-August index. A print above +1.8 confirms the very strong event and argues for lifting every Eastern Pacific rung the panel priced off the slow-start analogs; a stall below +1.4 argues the other way.
September's count. Two more Eastern Pacific hurricanes before October 1 would put 2026 level with or above the slow-start analogs' full-season average with two months still to run, and the whole ladder rises. A September that ends where September 1 left it settles "more than 6" and above the panel's way. All 24 contracts expire December 1, 2026.
The Bottom Line
The market is pricing the ocean, which showed twice in one week what a very strong El Nino can do. The panel is pricing the calendar, which gives the basin roughly 90 days, and its August 23 numbers are stale on the majors ladder in a direction this page does not hide. Karina and Lowell validated the direction of the market's lean. The prices at the top of the ladders still require its size to be historic, and the rungs doing the trading depend on a basin boundary the rules never drew. Every number above is graded in public when the board settles.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. Hawaiian Islands map (1838) by Simon P. Kalama, public domain; image cropped, toned, and composited.
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