100 Years of Hurricane Data

Besides my love of photography, which I hope you’ve found on this site, I’ve always had a fascination with weather, geography, and data analysis. After the recent devastation caused by hurricane Helene I started looking at some raw data on the NOAA website. I decided to download 100 years of data, put it into a spreadsheet, then extrapolate the information. What I found was very interesting so I thought I’d share some of that data with you. I’ve broken up the datasets into 50 year increments between 1924-1973 and 1974-2023. (A single chart with 100 years of data is kind of hard to see and read.)

Below I’ll provide the two charts that show the number of hurricanes that made landfall by year with analysis points to follow. (You can disregard the purple dotted line. This is for statistical process control only which I won’t use here) The orange line is the average number of hurricanes per year over each 50 year period. The numbers above the green dots are the number of storms during that year. More detail follows. (BTW if you want to see the NOAA data click here https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html )

Now for some details
For those who have studied and applied statistical process control you will note that BOTH charts above indicate NO trends in the number of hurricanes which made landfall annually. I could go into the math that validates this outcome, but I don’t think that’s necessary.

Details split into 50 year increments:

• 1924-1973 there were 88 storms that made landfall
• 1974-2023 there were 79 storms that made landfall
• 1924-1973 averaged 1.8 storms per year
• 1974-2023 averaged 1.6 storms per year
• 1924-1973 there were 14 category 4 storms
• 1974-2023 there were 7 category 4 storms
• 1924-1973 there were 2 category 5 storms
• 1974-2023 there were 2 category 5 storms
• 1924-1973 average wind speed 92.79 mph
• 1974-2023 average wind speed 89.79 mph
• Hurricanes by month – across all years
  June = 8
  July = 18
  Aug = 47
  Sep = 64
  Oct = 28
  Nov = 2
  
  

The one difference that I believe can be observed naturally – although I’m sure there is data available somewhere – the population and commercial growth has expanded in “hurricane alley” therefore making each new hurricane potentially devastating for those living in these regions. Having family that has been impacted greatly by hurricanes I continue to pray for their safety, protection, and wisdom each year as hurricane season comes around. If you find this information helpful feel free to share a comment.

Thanks and be safe out there!