Six weeks ago, this publication covered a 2026 peak season that had arrived early, driven by importers front-loading ahead of a tariff deadline, with volumes and rates expected to ease through the autumn. That is not what happened. The clearest evidence is that the forecaster most responsible for that "early and fading" read reversed its own number within a month, on the record, and the underlying port and rate data backs the reversal up.
The forecast that reversed itself
The National Retail Federation's Global Port Tracker is the standard reference for US import volume, produced with Hackett Associates. On 7 August 2026, its release was headlined "Import Cargo's Early Peak Season Is Winding Down," projecting September at 2.16 million TEU, up a modest 2.8 percent year over year, consistent with a season that had already peaked in May and was normalising.
On 9 September 2026, the same series was revised sharply. The new release, titled "Import Cargo's Peak Season Not Over Yet," put September at 2.31 million TEU, up 9.6 percent year over year, a materially larger number issued for the same month a month later. NRF's Jonathan Gold put it plainly: "We thought the peak season would be mostly behind us by now, but that's not the case." Hackett Associates founder Ben Hackett added that "imports have remained buoyant over the past three months despite several hurdles."
A forecaster publicly reversing its own call for the same month, a month apart, is itself the story. A shipper who read the early August signal as permission to stand down on capacity planning for September was working from a number NRF itself no longer believed by early September.
What the ports actually recorded
Port throughput backs the reversal rather than the original read. The Port of Los Angeles moved 960,464 TEU in July, its second-busiest July on record, and 955,907 TEU in August, roughly level with August 2025 but 6 percent above its own five-year average. Together, June through August was the port's busiest three consecutive months in its history. Executive Director Gene Seroka attributed it to "resilient consumer demand, early holiday shipments and a broad mix of cargo."
The Port of Long Beach posted its own record: 919,922 TEU in August, the best August in the port's 115-year history, up 2 percent year over year and its fifth-highest volume month ever recorded. Neither port's actual figures look like a season that peaked in May and was winding down by August, which is what the early-August narrative implied.
September port figures are not yet published as of this writing; both ports typically release monthly data eight to eighteen days after month end, so the actual September number will not land until early to mid-October.
What ocean rates did instead of easing
Rates tell the same story as volumes. By early July, Asia to US West Coast spot rates had already topped $7,500 per FEU and East Coast rates held near $9,000. Analysts including Vespucci Maritime's Lars Jensen called the market "past the apex" by early August, and West Coast rates had corrected roughly 20 percent off their early-July peak by then.
That correction did not continue into a normal autumn decline. Drewry's World Container Index for Shanghai to Los Angeles read $7,185 per FEU on 3 September, $7,352 on 10 September, and $7,712 on 17 September, climbing rather than falling through the month. Freightos attributed the September uptick specifically to Typhoon Saudel and a succession of storms closing Shanghai and Ningbo, with reports of up to 90 vessels queued for a single Shanghai berth over more than a week, compounded by Panama Canal drought restrictions and carriers managing capacity with blank sailings ahead of China's Golden Week holiday. As of the most recent reading available, 17 September, rates were still rising, not settling into the decline the early-August commentary anticipated.
An early peak, then a second one, not a single fading spike
The honest read of the data is a double surge rather than either a straightforward early peak or a normal-timing one. The front-loaded rush genuinely happened, tariff-timed, visible in May's volume and the early-July rate spike, and genuinely eased by early August, exactly as the original coverage described. What followed was not the quiet autumn that read implied, but a second, larger wave through September driven by a mix of sustained consumer demand and supply-side disruption, closed Chinese ports, Panama Canal restrictions, and capacity management around Golden Week, that pushed September volume and rates above what anyone had forecast a month earlier.
Sea-Intelligence has separately described the broader pattern, an early peak followed by a Q4 mini-peak bookended by Golden Week and pre-Lunar New Year restocking, as becoming a new baseline shape for the third consecutive year rather than a one-off. Whether or not that specific framing holds for 2026 in full, the data available so far is consistent with a market that rewarded shippers who kept booking discipline through September rather than assuming the front-loaded rush was the whole story.
What this means for the rest of the year
NRF's own October forecast, issued alongside its revised September number, calls for volume to fall roughly 9 percent from September into October, with further declines into November, meaning the forecaster that got caught out once is now calling for the current elevated plateau to be the last of the season's strength. Treat that as the current best estimate rather than a settled outcome, given how quickly the same series moved in the other direction six weeks ago.
The practical lesson for booking through the remainder of the year: a single early-season signal, however confidently reported, is not a reason to stop watching capacity and rates through the months that follow. Our guides to how freight rates are calculated and what to check before you book cover the mechanics behind a rate that moves this much this fast, and our earlier coverage of Red Sea and Cape routing capacity effects and the Strait of Hormuz disruption covers two of the structural pressures sitting underneath this year's volatility more broadly.
A forwarder actively tracking capacity and rate movement week to week, rather than working from a single seasonal call made months in advance, is the difference between a booking that holds and one that gets caught by a second wave nobody forecast. You can search more than 29,300 logistics companies by country and service in the CargoLinked directory, or post your shipment and let forwarders come to you.
Port throughput, rate index readings and forecasts referenced here are current as of the dates stated and will move further before the year closes. Confirm current conditions with your forwarder before making a booking decision based on a seasonal pattern alone.
