What’s the next surprise in store for hurricane season?
Perhaps even more difficult than predicting how hard a hurricane might hit an area is trying to determine what surprises lay in store for an upcoming tropical season.
The last two years were above-average storm-producing seasons, with 2020 breaking records with 30 named systems. It further surprised meteorologists with the head-turning Category 5 Hurricane Iota developing in the cool month of November. In 2021, Hurricane Ida shocked Americans with huge floodwaters not just on the Louisiana coastline but also more than 1,300 miles inland.
And the last six seasons have all had early storms form ahead of the official June 1st start of hurricane season.
With one surprise after another, just what lies under the surface of the 2022 hurricane season?
Multiple agencies and research groups are already predicting another above-average storm production year. A normal hurricane season has about 14 tropical storms, seven hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher) and three major hurricanes, or storms with sustained winds greater than 110 mph. In April, Colorado State University released its prediction of 19 named storms, with eight becoming hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
“I think every hurricane season has a trick or two up its sleeve,” said CSU meteorologist Philip Klotzbach. “Whether a season is more or less active than anticipated, or a storm does something really strange, each season has notable characteristics.”
AccuWeather made a similar prediction of 16 to 20 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to five major hurricanes, and earlier this week the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration similarly predicted 14-21 named storms.
The 2020 season has one of Klotzbach’s favorite tropical surprises; the oddity that was Hurricane Eta’s storm path. Eta, which slammed into Central America as a Category 4 storm, drifted north over Central America, then redeveloped into a tropical storm and tracked across the Caribbean. Days later it made landfall in Cuba, and then the Florida Keys before looping back through the southern Gulf of Mexico, recurving northward and finally hitting just north of Tampa and dying off the eastern Atlantic.
“What a strange storm!” Klotzbach said and marveled, “We had Category 4 hurricanes Eta and Iota make landfall three weeks apart in almost the same place in Nicaragua.”
The 2020 year shocked scientists and disaster preparedness managers alike with 11 named storms hitting the United States that year — the most ever, breaking the record of nine named storm landfalls set in 1916.
Last year, tropical storms and hurricane damages cost the United States $80 billion — $75 billion of which were caused by one storm: Ida, the fifth costliest storm in U.S. history, according to the NOAA. But those estimates weren’t just coastal damages observed in Louisiana, where Ida made landfall with Category 4 winds. Ida destroyed $55 billion worth of property in the Pelican State. After marching inland toward the Northeastern U.S. Ida racked up another $20 billion as a post-tropical storm — the most since Super Storm Sandy in 2012.
“These storms aren’t necessarily just coastal events,” Klotzbach said. “And some of these weaker storms, it’s not the wind that really causes the damage, it’s the rainfall.”
Water being the lethal blade of a hurricane is a narrative the NOAA and National Hurricane Center have been pushing to the public for several years. A 2018 NOAA study found 90% of hurricane-related deaths were water-related, and almost half were due to storm surge. Recent hurricane seasons have produced some of the most violent storm surge in the United States with waters reaching more than 20 feet along the Gulf Coast, said NHC storm surge scientist, Cody Fritz.
“In the last couple of years, we’ve had some very impactful hurricanes, especially within the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the biggest storm surge producing storms have been like a Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Ida, those sort of storms,” he said. “Historically, storm surge has been one of the major contributors to deaths overall.”
And historically speaking, that’s true, but recent storm seasons have challenged that notion by seeing more people killed by freshwater flooding than storm surge, said NHC branch chief Michael Brennan. Part of the reason why that might be is because of a failed understanding of risk perception by residents.
“I think sometimes people underestimate their own risk of knowing if they live in a flood-prone area. Or they may be in a vulnerable situation where they can’t move out,” Brennan said. “Oftentimes the focus — the hurricane — you don’t know exactly where that’s going to happen. Even the day out, it’s sort of where is that narrow zone of the very heaviest rainfall going to occur?”
In the case of Ida, 55 people were killed directly by the storm. It wasn’t Ida’s impressive 20-foot-plus storm surge in Louisiana that incurred the most fatal impact. It was the freshwater flooding Ida brought to the mid-Atlantic and New England states that killed 48 people, with the majority of people drowning in cars or swept away by fast-moving floodwaters, according to the NOAA. Eleven people in New York, two in New Jersey and one in Maryland drowned in their homes or apartments.
Whether inland or coastal, disaster prep managers are reminding residents to avoid any hurricane surprises and evacuate their neighborhood if it’s in a flood zone, but they don’t need to flee the state if a hurricane is on the way, just the flood zone, said Don Walker, a Brevard County communications director.
“We encourage people to evacuate tens of miles, not hundreds of miles. The main thing is to get off the barrier island or out of an unsafe structure — such as a mobile or manufactured home — into a concrete, secure structure,” he said. “That could be a hotel, a friend’s or family member’s home, but somewhere safe that won’t flood and is hurricane-fortified, based on current building codes.”
As for hurricane prepping, Orange County spends much of the year getting ready for the next hurricane season by gathering disaster relief supplies and placing them in storage at the Orange County Convention Center, just in case the worst-case scenario happens — a major hurricane pulverizing Central Florida. A hurricane passing over Orlando would certainly be a surprise as it’s not something that has happened too often.
Of the 324 catalogued tropical storms and hurricanes to strike Florida, only 12 have had eyes of the storm pass directly through the city of Orlando, according to the NOAA’s records dating back to 1851. Of the 12, only three were of hurricane strength. However, 2004′s Hurricane Charley produced a single gust of 105 mph recorded at the Orlando International Airport, which remains the strongest single gust to cut through Orlando in the last 30 years of record keeping.
To this day, a major hurricane has never passed over Orlando in recorded history.
While Orange maintains its stores of supplies, Emergency Manager Chief Lauraleigh Avery is encouraging residents to do the same.
“Proper preparation starts well before the start of hurricane season. The first step is preparing a disaster kit,” she said, “If the kit is prepared ahead of time, one can alleviate a lot of the potential stress associated with an approaching storm.”
Florida has faced damages from recent hurricanes: 2021′s Elsa and 2020′s Eta, but it’s been four years since Florida was hit by a major storm — 2018′s Hurricane Michael — that quickly jumped in power less than three days before landfall near Mexico Beach with 175 mph sustained winds, obliterating Panhandle infrastructure, destroying more than 800 buildings, causing $25 billion in damages and directly killing 16 people. The storm was the nastiest surprise of the 2018 season, the scars of which can still be felt in Mexico Beach’s housing market.
Given Florida’s unique geographic positioning in the United States, it’s actually remarkable that Florida hasn’t been hit by a strong storm since Michael, Brennan said. But that’s no reason for Floridians to breathe easy before the start of this year’s hurricane season.
“Everybody in Florida is vulnerable, whether you’re on the coast or inland, from wind storm surge along the coast, especially heavy rainfall — all those hazards are there, and I just have to encourage people to assess their risk and make their plan now,” Brennan said.
For more information about preparing for the upcoming hurricane season, pick up a copy of Sunday’s Orlando Sentinel for our annual hurricane guide or visit OrlandoSentinel.com/hurricaneguide.
