Here’s a historical calendar showing 110 years of storms that made landfall in Florida at hurricane strength. The color coding of the interior dot shows each storms strength at landfall, and the outer dot the strength at its height.If you click HERE, it will take you to an html-empowered version of the same graph, which, upon clicking on the dots, will transport you to Wikipedia summaries for each storm. They are fun to read (if you have time).
The calendar shows that most of the powerful storms are clustered between the months of August and October.
Hurricane-strength landfalls after November and before mid July are much rarer, but also keep in mind that’s an incomplete metric:
Tropical storms and waves that (though not hurricane strength) can be just as big rain makers, and also rough up the coast with their swales.
Case in point is Alma (1966).
It's Florida's earliest landfalling hurricane ... and it made Florida landfall twice, once on the Keys and again in Apalachee Bay, way on the west side of the peninsula, but quixotically dumped 10 inches of rain over on the Gold Coast east near Miami.
Thus, landfalls – let alone hurricane-strength landfalls – only tell a fraction of the story.
But it’s an interesting way to keep track, and look back into time. As for what this season will bring, that’s anyone’s guess!
It's Florida's earliest landfalling hurricane ... and it made Florida landfall twice, once on the Keys and again in Apalachee Bay, way on the west side of the peninsula, but quixotically dumped 10 inches of rain over on the Gold Coast east near Miami.
Thus, landfalls – let alone hurricane-strength landfalls – only tell a fraction of the story.
But it’s an interesting way to keep track, and look back into time. As for what this season will bring, that’s anyone’s guess!
4 comments:
"Anyone's guess" is right, Bob. Who knows what hurricanes will hit--and where and how many?????
When I lved in New Orleans--we luckily had no hurricanes. Then I moved to Texas---and had some tropical storms but no serious hurricanes. Since those dates, both cities have been HIT by terrible hurricanes.
Now---I live in Tennessee (tornado alley)... In some ways, tornadoes are worse since they can come quickly without much warning.
SO---where is the best place to live????? Who knows!!!! ha
Betsy
Very impressive powers of nature! I think no one would dare to mess around with these strengths. Have a great week :)
This was not my favorite time of year in Florida. Once I became a property owner, hurricane parties lost their appeal.
Good luck to you all for a no damage season.
Thanks for your comments. Yes, its the start of a nerve racking season. Fortunately, the first several weeks are usually relatively non eventful (... knock on wood).
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