PredictPedia tracks several prediction markets on hurricane landfalls in the United States and nearby areas during the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. The contracts do not all measure the same thing. Some ask whether a storm of a specific category will make landfall in a single city, others ask whether a state or island group will be hit, and one asks how many hurricane landfalls will occur across the conterminous United States in 2026. Reading the resolution rules closely is the main way to understand what each contract pays on. The Tampa contracts show how narrow a rule can be. The Category 3 version resolves Yes if a hurricane that is exactly Category 3 at landfall crosses the coastline within the municipal boundaries of the City of Tampa, Florida, as reported by the National Hurricane Center [1]. A higher category does not satisfy it, and the center must cross from water to land [1]. A parallel Category 4 contract applies the same structure with the category changed [3]. The rules also say the NHC's initial operational landfall report governs, subject to the contract's material-error correction rules [1][3]. The national landfall-count contract uses different wording. It resolves Yes if at least two hurricane landfalls occur in the conterminous United States between market creation and 11:59:59 PM ET on December 31, 2026, as shown in official NHC advisories and post-storm Tropical Cyclone Reports [2]. Each landfall the NHC identifies as distinct counts separately, while a single continuous track that does not leave and re-strike land counts once [2]. The Hawaii contract covers a 74 mph or higher hurricane making landfall in Hawaii during the 2026 hurricane season [4]. It lists the primary southeastern islands by name and excludes Midway Atoll and the Northwestern Islands, also known as the Leeward Hawaiian Islands [4]. Polymarket's multi-state event asks whether a hurricane will make landfall in individual states by November 30, 2026. The sample shown here includes 12 of 18 markets in that event, so it is a partial sample. Prices from the excluded markets are not known, and they should not be assumed to be higher or lower than the included ones. Each market is also a separate contract with its own wording, so the event should not be read as a single ranking of states.

Historical Context

Hurricane Isaias, a 2026 storm, is described in a Wikipedia article as having made landfall near Destin, Florida, later on October 9, after peaking as a major hurricane that day. The article says it was the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Milton two years earlier [5]. This is historical background from an encyclopedia entry retrieved for this snapshot, not a verified current report, and it does not establish how any open contract would resolve. Hurricane Melissa, which the Wikipedia article describes as making a catastrophic landfall in Jamaica in late October 2025, is also described as tied with other storms as the strongest Atlantic hurricane by maximum sustained winds [6]. The article says climate scientists concluded that human-driven climate change intensified the storm's destructive winds and rainfall [6]. This entry concerns a 2025 storm and does not bear directly on the 2026 contract windows.

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