There are just under two months left before the official Atlantic hurricane season ends in November, and with millions of people across the Southeast United States still assessing the damage of Hurricane Helene and two more storms churning at sea, experts are warning it isn’t over yet. It may even last into December.

What was expected to be a “hyperactive” hurricane season has turned out to be only average by the start of October. It may not have felt average to anyone who lives in the Southeast, where, in addition to Helene, three other hurricanes have already made landfall this year. But in a typical hurricane season in the United States, two or three hurricanes make landfall; in the busiest year on record, 2020, there were six.

“So in some ways, it’s been busy, and in some ways, it hasn’t been busy,” said Matthew Rosencrans, the lead forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s seasonal hurricane outlook. His organization was one of many this spring that predicted an abnormally busy season.

In May, NOAA said it expected 17 to 25 named tropical cyclones, eight to 13 of which would become hurricanes. An updated assessment in August, issued during a long lull in storms, held generally the same forecast. As of Friday, there have been 12 named storms this year, and eight have become hurricanes.

October and November typically calm down slightly. When graphed, an average season looks like a tall mountain with a solid peak of activity at the beginning of September. But seasonal hurricane experts like Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University believe this year will instead bring three hurricane seasons: “A busy start, a super-quiet peak and a busy finish,” he said. When graphed, this season will look like two mountain peaks with a distinct valley in the center.