Board up the windows? Fill the sandbags? Hurricane season is here, albeit early for Savannah

Adam Van Brimmer, Savannah Morning News
·1 min read
Hurricane Ian stirred up bigger than usual waves along Tybee Island as Hurricane Ian moved past the Georgia coast in 2022
Hurricane Ian stirred up bigger than usual waves along Tybee Island as Hurricane Ian moved past the Georgia coast in 2022

The following is from the May 30 edition of the weekly "Savannah Town Square" opinion newsletter. The newsletter pushes to email inboxes every Tuesday morning. To sign up for this free newsletter, go to SavannahNow.com/Newsletters.

The National Hurricane Center must have had Savannah residents’ propensity for procrastination in mind when it picked June 1 as the official start day of hurricane season.

Around here, we know storms don’t rip across the Atlantic at us until September at the earliest. Hurricane David made landfall on Sept. 4, 1979; Hurricane Hugo on Sept. 21, 1989; and Hurricane Matthew on Oct. 8, 2016.

But because Savannahians need plenty of advance notice on just about everything, calling hurricane season “open” three months early is a sound decision.

Now, will any of us spend this weekend prepping or refreshing our evacuation kits? Stocking up on bottled water, canned goods and spare jerry-cans of gasoline? Probably not. When the day comes when we do, we can at least say, “Well, hurricane season started June 1, so I really have no excuse.”

For what that’s worth.

A green Parker's logo has been added to mark Savannah on the mural near the painting of Hurricane Fran.
A green Parker's logo has been added to mark Savannah on the mural near the painting of Hurricane Fran.

If you wonder why the good folks at the National Hurricane Center truly picked June 1, it’s because 97% of Atlantic storm activity happens between June 1 and Nov. 30, according to NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division. However, those same researchers acknowledge that the peak of the season spans August through October, with 96% of major hurricane days falling during those months. Drilling down farther, “maximum activity” occurs in the first 20 days of September.

So in other words, the June 1 to Nov. 30 “season” is a CYA situation.

Regardless, consider this Savannahian aware that the likelihood of a hurricane visiting us is higher in the months ahead. But you won’t find me at Home Depot or the Kroger stocking up on supplies anytime soon. I’ll be at the beach instead.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Hurricane season opens June 1 earlier than storms threaten Savannah