Hurricane season is over at long last—a lengthy one for both the Atlantic and Pacific regions. The Atlantic saw two historic hurricanes make landfall in the United States, while the eastern Pacific saw the greatest number of scale-topping storms on record. The stories of the two ocean basins are divergent lessons in how a hurricane season can land in the record books.
The Atlantic Ocean saw fifteen named storms this year, which is a few ticks above the average twelve. Eight of those storms went on to become hurricanes, and two of them—Florence and Michael—reached major hurricane status. Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina and crawled its way inland with historic rains before the storm lifted away a few days later. Hurricane Michael reached the Florida Panhandle as one of the strongest storms ever recorded at landfall in the United States, packing winds just a hair below category five status.
The Pacific Ocean’s hurricane season was a much different story. This basin saw the most intense hurricane season ever recorded. The basin saw 22 named storms between the eastern and central parts of the Pacific, stretching from the west coast of Mexico to the Hawaiian Islands. The season saw a record-breaking ten hurricanes reach category four or five on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Despite the high number of intense storms, fortunately, relatively few of them managed to make landfall. Hurricane Lane came extremely close to making landfall in Hawaii as a strong hurricane, and Hurricane Willa did make landfall near Mazatlan, Mexico, as a major hurricane.
