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August Hurricane History - 2022
Bottom Line: If you're familiar with the Atlantic hurricane season, you're aware that we've just begun to enter the peak time of it. There’s plenty of good news as we wade into what’s historically the 2nd busiest month of hurricane season. Starting with how relatively quiet the start of this season has been. We’re entering August with only three weak tropical storms to date. One of which, Colin, was potentially a stretch to have even classified as one given that it developed and died within seven hours having topped out with winds at 40 mph. Comparatively, in the record setting season of two years ago, we’d already had three times as many named storms including two hurricanes and in last year’s above average season we’d had five storms – including one hurricane. As we know things can change quickly in the tropics, and this may yet prove to be an especially busy season, but it’s been about as benign as we could have hoped for up to now. And on that note...
Entering August, the Hurricane Center’s map is currently clear for the next five days. I’ll explain what our current pacing resembles in a minute but first let’s look at how much of the traditional hurricane season is statistically behind us based on historical data.
Since tracking began in 1851:
- 14% of all tropical storms happened prior to August
- 10% of all hurricanes have formed prior to August
So, while a third of hurricane season is behind us based on dates on a calendar, about 90% of what’s historically happened is ahead of us. The start of this season most closely resembles the 2018 hurricane season, although, two of the three named storms in that season became hurricanes – so the intensity to this season remains much lower. We finished 2018 with 15 named storms and eight hurricanes, which if something similar were to occur this year, would place the season at the low end of all preseason estimates for total named storms and about in line with the number of projected hurricanes.
As we advance through the month, hopefully free from the threat of hurricanes, we'll enter peak hurricane season. The peak has historically been the final two weeks of August and first two weeks of September - with September 10th being the absolute peak of season. For perspective, there have been more tropical storms and hurricanes in August, than the first seven months of the year combined.
Here's what we average:
- 2.4 tropical storms & 1.6 hurricanes (four named systems per year, half of which are hurricanes).
An average of one storm or hurricane makes landfall in the US every other year. So, here we go – right into the heart of season. Fingers crossed.