Atmospheric and Oceanic Influences on Seasonal Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Landfall Probability

Abstract Modes of tropical atmosphere‐ocean variability, such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM), are useful predictors of seasonal Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) frequency. However, the percentage of TCs that make landfall has varied widely year‐to‐year since 1980 (13%–75%) and is weakly correlated with the number of landfalling TCs. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the percentage of TCs that made landfall over the Americas and Caribbean Islands and ENSO and AMM using observations from 1980 to 2025. We found that while ENSO strongly influences landfall probability, the AMM does not. ENSO alters TC steering flow through a Rossby wave train response. Furthermore, ENSO's influence on TC environmental favorability and steering flow work in concert to increase the number of TCs and landfall probability during La Niña, and decrease them during El Niño, highlighting an additional utility of ENSO in seasonal Atlantic TC prediction.