HOUSTON – All is quiet in the tropical Atlantic Thursday morning and, at least for us, will remain so.
Today marks another milestone as it has been eight years since Category 3 Hurricane Wilma made landfall on the southwest coast of Florida.
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Wilma proceeded to cross the Everglades into the heavily populated east coast of south Florida, ringing up over $20 billion in losses, which ranks it as No. 4 most costly behind Ike. Since then, no Category 3, 4 or 5 storm has made landfall in the United States.
This "drought" of major hurricane landfalls eclipses by two years the previous record that ran from the 1900 Galveston Storm to October 18, 1906, when a category 3 storm hit south Florida.
Looking at the data since 1900, there have been 78 category 3 or higher hurricanes make U.S. landfalls. If they occurred on average, two out of three years would see a major hurricane landfall. This eight-year drought is "off the charts" statistically and surely will not last forever last.
We have no explanation for the recent lack of major hurricane landfalls. There have been plenty of major hurricanes since Wilma – 23 to be exact. Several came close. Gustav weakened just before reaching Louisiana, Ike was just 5 mph below category 3, and Irene weakened just before landfall in North Carolina.
The category is probably not the best way to identify impact.
Ike is currently No. 2 most costliest at $30 billion, Irene is No. 6 at $16 billion and Gustav is No. 16 at $5 billion.
Sandy, while technically not tropical at landfall, would have been a category 1, yet produced at least $50 billion in damages.
It was nice to have a quiet hurricane season on the Texas coast.