May’s Hurricane History
Bottom Line: Yesterday it happened. A blob, otherwise known as a disturbance, appeared on the National Hurricane Center’s website. A quick check of the disturbance, located just off South Florida’s coast suggests it has a likely chance of development over the next five days. Now it’s clear it won’t be an issue for South Florida but it does usher in the start of hurricane season, or I suppose pre-hurricane season. Something to be mindful of is that there’s not a magical hurricane season switch that gets flipped on June first and turned off November 31st. Those dates are somewhat arbitrary to a degree.
Here’s the first thing to know about tropical activity during the month of May. It’s common, in fact last year our first named storm Andrea, was born in May and we didn’t have any named storms during June. Historically, dating back to the original record keeping in 1851, we’ve averaged about one named storm every six years during May. That includes 25 tropical storms and four hurricanes. In fact, some years the season has kicked off even earlier. We’ve had recorded named storms every month of the year-including two hurricanes in January and one in March.
But here’s the more recent trend. For five consecutive years we’ve had named storms in May. For these reasons, being prepared now essentially makes as much sense as being prepared in June. The storms don’t choose specific dates on calendars the way we do. Historically 2% of named storms and hurricanes happen before hurricane season officially starts.