ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Although there still are a few days left to what turned out to be an above-average Atlantic hurricane season, there are no storms on the horizon.
Whew.
Hurricane season 2019 will end quietly come Nov. 30 and, as of Monday, the map is empty. Tropical Storm Sebastien, which lingered out in the open Atlantic Ocean for several days, no longer is being forecast.
The National Hurricane Center and 10Weather meteorologists do not anticipate any tropical cyclone formation during the next five days, at least which would put us into December.
For the fifth year in a row, storm activity began prior to the official June 1 start of hurricane season. Subtropical Storm Andrea kicked everything off, though it was a storm for the fishes and one that stayed away from land.
It would be well into July before the season's second storm developed, Barry, briefly becoming a low-end hurricane before making landfall in Louisiana as a 75-mph storm.
The next several weeks would be rather uneventful until thunderstorms developed far out in the Atlantic. This cluster of storms would develop quickly, become a tropical depression and Tropical Storm Dorian several hours later on Aug. 24. It would be a few more days before Dorian became a hurricane just prior to arrival to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
And on Sept. 1, Dorian would begin its chapter in history, rapidly intensifying into a Category 4 and, eventually, a Category 5 hurricane with 185-mph maximum sustained winds. It made landfall on the Bahamas' Great Abaco Island, devastating it and much of the country's northern islands. It's believed 61 people were killed, but the number is likely to be much higher with bodies buried among the rubble of thousands of destroyed homes.
The United Nations reports 70,000 people no longer have a place to live.
Hurricane Dorian ranks among the Top 5 storms ever recorded by peak sustained wind speed at 185 mph.
The season would remain active for the next few months, with tropical storms Imelda, Nestor and Olga making landfall in the U.S. And despite Nestor's landfall in the Florida Panhandle, there would be trouble in Tampa Bay: A rare, long-track EF-2 tornado in Polk County was among at least three tornadoes that developed from the system.
In the spring, NOAA predicted nine to 15 named storms in 2019, only to revise the forecast to 10-17 in early August. What's likely the final count: 20 tropical systems, 18 of those named storms. Six of those became hurricanes and three of those became major hurricanes, Category 3 or greater.
As this hurricane season comes to a close, remember it's never, ever too early to prepare for the next one.
Hurricane Headquarters: How to check your supplies, evacuation zones
What other people are reading right now:
- Classrooms in Crisis: Tampa Bay area teachers are being injured by students
- Trump signs bill into law making animal cruelty a federal felony
- Prosthetic legs stolen from double-amputee high school wrestler
- Teen charged with 2nd-degree murder for stabbing his grandmother to death, police say
- 'We're still here:' Seminole Tribe shares dark history of Egmont Key
FREE 10NEWS APP:
