The current drought is the longest period of time that has passed without a major hurricane making landfall in the USA since reliable records began in 1850.
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The quiet hurricane season was no surprise. Climate experts say that as future seasons trend calmer, the Cape Fear region should still brace for the impacts of heavy storms and weather anomalies.
No major hurricanes measuring Category 3 or greater have made landfall in the US for the past nine years. And they weren’t far off. Officials named 11 storms.
The two intense hurricanes of the season were Danny and Joaquin.
This development is unique because it marks the first nine-year period since the 1850’s that a Category 3 storm has not struck USA shores, according to a NASA study released this year. About two hurricanes hit the US during a typical season.
The 2015 Atlantic hurricane season had 11 named storms, 4 hurricanes and 2 major hurricanes.
Hall’s research included running 1,000 computer simulations based on sea surface temperatures and Atlantic hurricanes from 1950 to 2012.
“When we looked qualitatively at the nine-year drought, they aren’t inactive seasons”. El Nino – warmer than normal water in the central and eastern tropical Pacific – suppresses storm activity in the Atlantic due to increases in vertical wind shear (the change in wind direction with height in the atmosphere).
Here’s what happened in 2015.
Eleven “named” storms were more than most pre-season forecasting teams had anticipated and at the upper end of the National Hurricane Center’s updated August prediction. Those same conditions create more wind shear over the ocean, meaning storms that break through that sheer and reach land tend to be more intense. This causes the storm to weaken or struggle to form in the first place.
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Barely an oil worker was evacuated from the Gulf of Mexico and the biggest storm this year-the strongest hurricane ever in the Western Hemisphere, actually-tore through the Pacific.
