Tropical Weather-Atlantic for Thursday, January 31, 2019
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Hurricane season has come to an end
There have been no organized tropical features across the Atlantic basin since Oct. 31, and there are no suspect features across the basin that might become organized tropical systems during the
post-hurricane season through early December.
Looking back on the 2018 hurricane season, there were 15 named tropical storms, eight of which became hurricanes. Of those eight hurricanes, two were major hurricanes. There were four landfalls of
tropical storms and hurricanes on the United States this season. Alberto made landfall as a tropical storm during the preseason on May 28 over the western Florida Panhandle as a 45-mph tropical
storm. Florence made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Wrightsville Beach on the morning of Sept. 14 with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph. Gordon made landfall as a strong tropical storm near
the Alabama-Mississippi border on the evening of Sept. 4 with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph. Finally, Hurricane Michael made landfall as a major and very strong Category 4 hurricane over Mexico
Beach, Florida, near Panama City on the early afternoon of Oct. 10 with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph. Michael was the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. since Andrew of 1992 and was the fourth
strongest hurricane on record to make landfall on the U.S.
Statistics of the 2018 hurricane season show that the season was above normal in terms of the number of tropical storms with 15 versus a normal number of 12 and hurricanes, eight versus a normal
number of six. We also use Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE, as a way to frame both the accumulated intensity and the length of time all storms lasted. During the 2018 hurricane season, 129 ACE
units were recorded compared to around 104 units as an average of all years combined since 1850. Last year's ACE was about 225 units, almost double of the 2018 season.
By AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski
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Copyright 2019 AccuWeather
