Atlantic Hurricane Season

Hurricane Otto at peak intensity on 11/24/16 (Source: NASA)

The 2016 Atlantic hurricane season ends this Wednesday and has been one of the most significant in years.  There was a total of 15 tropical storms and seven of these intensified into hurricanes.  Three of these hurricanes became “major” hurricanes, Category 3 or greater on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.  NOAA’s forecast for the season was accurate as it called for 12 to 17 tropical storms, 5 to 8 hurricanes and 2 – 4 major hurricanes.

A contributing factor NOAA scientists pointed too in their seasonal forecast for 2016 was the dissipation of last winter’s major El Nino combined with the expected arrival of a weak episode of La Nina.  Consequently, this season saw the highest number of named storms in the Atlantic Ocean since 2012 and the most major hurricanes since 2011.  Conditions in the tropical east Pacific (off the west coast of Mexico) were a little quieter this season as no Category 5 hurricanes developed for the first time since 2013.

Hurricane Matthew was the strongest hurricane to develop this season in the Atlantic Ocean.  Matthew was the first Category 5 hurricane since 2007 and caused considerable damage in the Caribbean.  It also brought record flooding to the southeast U.S. coast from Florida to North Carolina.  Matthew developed a few weeks after Hermine became the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida since 2005.  A key streak remains intact, though, as no major hurricane has made landfall in Florida since Wilma in October 2005.  Although Matthew was at one point a Category 5 hurricane, it weakened to Category 1 status before making landfall in South Carolina on October 8.

Some other interesting storms occurred in 2016.  For instance, Alex reached hurricane intensity on January 14 over the east central Atlantic.  Alex was the first Atlantic hurricane in January since Alice in 1955.  On November 24, Hurricane Otto reached its peak intensity as a strong Category 2 with sustained winds of 110 mph while in the southwest Caribbean Sea.  Dr. Phil Klotzbach, Colorado State University said Hurricane Otto was “…the strongest Atlantic hurricane this late in the season since 1934.”  Hurricane Otto also was only the fifth tropical cyclone since 1950 to cross Central America from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and first since Tropical Storm Cesar in 1996.

Hurricane season in the northeastern Pacific Ocean also ends this week and there aren’t any new tropical storms on the horizon.  The World Meteorological Organization meets every year after hurricane season ends to determine if any hurricane names should be retired.  A tropical storm or hurricane name is retired if the storm is particularly damaging or deadly (such as “Andrew,” “Katrina” and “Wilma”).  Names that are retired are replaced on the cyclical list of hurricane names with a different name that starts with the same letter.