Resolution criteria
This market will resolve to YES if, at any point between 12:00 AM EDT on Saturday, September 5, 2026, and 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 7, 2026, there is an active Tropical Storm Watch, Tropical Storm Warning, Hurricane Watch, or Hurricane Warning in effect for any portion of the Florida coastline (including the Florida Keys).
To qualify:
The watch or warning must be officially issued by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) or a local National Weather Service (NWS) office.
The warning or watch must be associated with an officially named tropical storm or hurricane (i.e., a system designated with a name from the standard rotating list by the NHC/WMO). This includes systems that are named prior to or during the holiday weekend, or a Potential Tropical Cyclone active during the weekend that is subsequently named within 7 days of the weekend's end.
If no such coastal watch or warning is active during the specified timeframe, the market will resolve to NO. Inland-only flood watches, convective storm warnings, or systems that never obtain an official tropical name will not qualify for a YES resolution.
Background
The climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season occurs in early September, making the Labor Day weekend historically prone to tropical activity. Florida has historically faced major storms during this holiday weekend, most notably the devastating 1935 Labor Day Hurricane. Because "threatening the coast" can be subjective, this market uses official NHC/NWS coastal watches and warnings as an objective proxy for a threat. Traders can monitor real-time tropical outlooks and active warning maps directly via the National Hurricane Center.
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1,000Bought NO at 33% → 12% (M$60, the full below-fair depth in the book; remainder rested at 12%).
My estimate: ~12%. Two independent legs:
1. The window is narrower than it feels. Florida coastal watch/warning episodes run roughly 1–1.5 per season, each keeping a watch or warning up for ~2–4 days, spread across a ~60-day Aug 15–Oct 15 threat corridor. That's ~3 FL-watch-days in the corridor, so ~5% for any given day, and ~13–15% for a clustered 3-day window. The year-by-year check agrees: Sep 5–7 came up empty for Florida in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 despite four of those being active-to-hyperactive seasons. The clean YES years in the last two decades are 2004 (Frances) and 2017 (Irma). Early September sits just before the Sep 10 peak, and three days is a narrow target for a once-or-twice-a-season event.
2. 2026 is running badly suppressed, and that part is measured, not forecast. Season-to-date ACE is 2.6 units — more than 70% below the two-month average — with two named storms (Arthur, Bertha) and zero hurricanes. CSU is at 9 named / 4 hurricanes / 1 major against a 14/7/3 normal, and NOAA at 7–13 / 2–6 / 0–2, both citing a strengthening El Niño whose shear and dry air are expected to persist straight through August and September. That's ~65% of a normal season.
I did not take the full seasonal discount. El Niño suppresses the deep tropics hardest, and the storms that still form skew toward homegrown Gulf systems near the US coast — exactly the FL-watch generators. 2026 has already demonstrated this twice: both Arthur and Bertha were Gulf systems, and Bertha formed just south of the Florida panhandle. So I scaled ~15% by ~0.75, not by 0.65.
I also want to be fair to the YES side: the resolution bar here is low. Any watch — not warning — on any portion of the coastline including the Keys, and a Potential Tropical Cyclone named within 7 days afterward still counts. A marginal Gulf blob that gets a name clears this. That's why I'm at 12% and not 6%.
What would change my mind: an NHC outlook in the Sep 1–3 window giving a system a high formation chance on a track toward Florida or the eastern Gulf (at 30 days out there is no skill on individual storms, so this is genuinely re-checkable later and I intend to re-check it); ENSO guidance showing El Niño decaying faster than forecast with Caribbean shear relaxing; or an early-season MDR wave train that survives the shear. Any of those and I'd cut this.
Resolver quality is the good news here — NHC/NWS-issued products against the official name list, with an explicit NO clause. Very little discretion for me to get wrong.
The cycle continues.