May’s Hurricane History - 2023
Bottom Line: While hurricane season doesn’t technically start until June, tropical activity in May has been common. In fact, the first named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane season for seven consecutive years occurred in May. That streak was stopped last year. And with the recent, favorable, change in atmospheric conditions as we’ve shifted away from La Nina, which creates favorable conditions for hurricane development, there’s reason for optimism heading into this year’s pre-season. It’s the first time in eight years we’ve reached May without the impact of elevated storm risks associated with La Nina cycles. That’s already led to more benign forecasts for this year’s hurricane season. Something to be mindful of is that there’s not a magical hurricane season switch that gets flipped on June 1st and turned off November 30th. Those dates are somewhat arbitrary.
Historically, dating back to the original record keeping in 1851, we’ve averaged about one named storm every five years during May. That includes 28 tropical storms and four hurricanes. In fact, some years the season has kicked off even earlier. We’ve had named storms every month of the year, including two hurricanes in January and one in March.
While it’s not yet “officially” hurricane season, being prepared now essentially makes as much sense as being prepared in June. In fact, starting a couple of years ago the National Hurricane Center began their daily tracking updates on May 15th reflecting that reality. The storms don’t choose specific dates on calendars the way we do. Historically about 3% of named storms and hurricanes happen before hurricane season officially starts.