It’s the semi-cliché phrase you hear every meteorologist say at the onset of hurricane season: “It only takes one storm to be a bad year.”
While it may be a familiar sentence, there is weight to the words that often gets overlooked.
Recommended Videos
During the 2021 season, we exhausted every single name on the National Hurricane Center storm-name list, ending up with 21 named storms by the end of the season. This marked the 3rd most active season on record. Even with all of these storms, South Florida only dealt with fringe effects from Elsa in early July.
Reflecting on the 2020 hurricane season, what comes to mind? Nothing truly memorable stands out as far as South Florida is concerned, even though 2020 went down in history as the most active hurricane season ever recorded with 30 named storms!
Tropical Storm Isaias made a pass just offshore of South Florida in early August. What would become Sally crossed Miami-Dade County as a depression in mid-September. Eta made landfall in Lower Matecumbe Key as a tropical storm in early November. While 2020 may have brought a few systems our way, it is far from the top of our list when we think about horrible hurricane seasons.
On the flip side, let’s review 1992. On paper, it is definitely a well-below-average season. Only seven named storms formed this particular year, with the first named storm not even developing until mid-August. However, it is still considered one of the worst hurricane seasons in South Florida history. That first named storm, Andrew, would turn into a monstrous Category 5 hurricane aimed for Homestead. This one storm turned an otherwise sleepy hurricane season into one of the worst years on record.
Our current 2022 hurricane season is another prime example. Much of this season has been relatively quiet with only 11 named storms so far being called. We even witnessed the second longest tropical pause in development ever recorded as a whopping 60 days went by with no tropical systems on the map. Even so, our most recent landfall with Hurricane Ian decimated the beloved Southwest Florida coastline. Over 100 lives were taken by this storm, making this otherwise tame hurricane season a historic and deadly one.
It is this fact that brings us back to our favorite phrase: “it only takes one storm to be a bad year.” This is why it is so important to be prepared early and constantly stay up-to-date with the tropics. Don’t get caught off-guard by that one storm.
So where do we go from here? Tropical Storm Karl dissipated Saturday morning before making landfall in Mexico. Elsewhere in the tropics, we were eyeing a very weak wave deep in the tropical Atlantic basin, but strong wind shear is preventing any development. While we still have over a month left in hurricane season, our basin looks to be dormant at least for the next week, much like a bear preparing for a long hibernation.