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Trump Campaign

Thomas Simonetti

Coastal residents can now take a collective deep breath — hurricane season is now technically over.

By the books, Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. While surprises <i>can </i>happen, a hurricane has never hit the Lower 48 outside this window, according to records that date back to 1861.

Five hurricanes slammed the United States. Four alone reached at least Florida. According to some estimates, damage <a href="https://scalialab.com/about/case-studies/reports/2024-atlantic-hurricane-season/" target=_blank>exceeded $190 billion</a>. More than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/interactive/2024/hurricane-helene-death-toll-north-carolina/?itid=ap_sarahkaplan" target=_blank>200 people died as a result of Helene</a>, making it the deadliest mainland U.S. storm since Katrina — though thousands died in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, when Maria hit in September 2017.

The season has been a hyperactive one. That’s according to ACE, or Accumulated Cyclone Energy — a metric that estimates how much energy storms churn through and expend on strong winds. A typical hurricane season averages 122.5 ACE units. This season has featured 161.6 units — above the 159.6 unit threshold required for a season to be “hyperactive.”

That’s in line with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/05/23/hurricane-season-forecast-active-storms/" target=_blank>preseason forecasts</a>, which pointed toward anomalously warm ocean waters and a burgeoning La Niña pattern. La Niñas, which begin as a cooling of water temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific, tend to feature enhanced upward motion in the air over the Atlantic.

Here’s a look back at some of the most memorable aspects of the season.

Ben Noll

The season got off to a slow start. Alberto didn’t form until June 19, the latest first-forming Atlantic storm since 2014. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/07/02/hurricane-beryl-warning-ocean-heat/" target="_blank">Then came Beryl</a>, which formed east of the Lesser Antilles on June 28.

The storm rapidly intensified east of the Windward Islands, reaching peak strength as a Category 5 on July 2. Beryl was the earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record and only the second recorded in July. Beryl had also set records as the farthest-south Category 4 on record in the Atlantic, the earliest-forming Category 4 on record and the fastest-intensifying storm on record anytime before September.

Danielle Villasana

It hit <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/07/01/hurricane-beryl-impacts-landfall-path/" target=_blank>Carriacou, Grenada, on July 1</a> with 150-mph winds. Then on July 5, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/07/11/hurricane-beryl-journey-caribbean-jamaica-texas-newyork/" target=_blank>it struck Tulum, Mexico</a>, bringing 110-mph winds to the Yucatán Peninsula. By the time it hit Texas on July 8, it was a Category 1 hurricane, but Houston still saw 80-to-90-mph winds and a foot of rain.

Beryl’s remnants also unleashed a three-day tornado outbreak that spawned 68 twisters from Louisiana to New York and Ontario.

After Beryl, two other hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast before Helene — Debby, which made landfall in the Florida Big Bend near Steinhatchee on Aug. 5, and Francine, which came ashore in Louisiana as a low-end Category 2 on Sept. 11.

Helene, however, was of a different league.

The system formed in the western Caribbean on Sept. 24 and rapidly intensified through landfall in the Big Bend of Florida on Sept. 26. It had maximum winds estimated at 140 mph at the coastline. Destructive winds gusting 90 to 100 mph penetrated far inland into southeast Georgia and the Appalachians of western South Carolina. The National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Georgia, issued its first-ever flash flood emergency for the city of Atlanta; 11.12 inches of rain fell in just three<b> </b>calendar days, the heaviest to hit Atlanta since 1919.

That paled in comparison to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/interactive/2024/north-carolina-hurricane-helene-before-aftermath-georgia/" target=_blank>what hit western North Carolina</a>. A general 15 to 30 inches fell in the mountains — largely caused by a predecessor rain. Tropical moisture streaming north of Helene interacted with a frontal boundary stalled in the mountains, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/09/30/helene-north-carolina-evacuation-flooding/" target=_blank>bringing a day of drenching deluges</a> before Helene’s actual rains ever arrived.

When that storm came, it cut off power and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/10/02/helene-water-recovery/" target="_blank">access to water</a>, and it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/interactive/2024/hurricane-helene-death-toll-north-carolina/?itid=ap_sarahkaplan" target="_blank">would take dozens of lives</a>. The storm’s impacts will reverberate for years. Forests, for example, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/hurricane-helene-forest-damage-north-carolina/?itid=ap_simonducroquet" target="_blank">were wiped out, damage that extended hundreds of miles</a> and will have long-term consequences.

Milton went from a tropical depression on Oct. 5 to a 180-mph Category 5 two days later  as it traversed the southwestern Gulf of Mexico. It tied as the sixth most-intense Atlantic hurricane on record based on winds. Its air pressure dipped to 897 millibars  — a vacuum effect that spurred powerful inward suction that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/10/10/hurricane-milton-damage-florida/" target=_blank>drove its extreme winds</a>. At one point, its eye was only 3 miles wide.

Reshma Kirpalani

Julia Wall

Hurricane Oscar <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/10/19/hurricane-oscar-tracker-map/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" target=_blank>formed on Oct. 19</a> in the Caribbean, surprising scientists and prompting <a href="https://x.com/NHC_Atlantic/status/1847701120400953468" target=_blank>hurricane warnings</a> for the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas. It eventually hit Baracoa in the Cuban province of Guantánamo.

Morning outlooks on Oct. 19 called for a “low” chance of tropical formation. However, a satellite passing overhead derived tropical storm-force winds, and Oscar was named by midmorning. It was declared a hurricane later that night.

Ariel Ley

The secret to Oscar’s swift strengthening was its minuscule size. Small storms are notoriously capricious and able to pulse upward and downward in strength quickly.

Oscar was the smallest hurricane on record. Hurricane-force winds only extended outward five miles from the center; the eye was a mere three miles wide.

There are still some satellite data that suggest Oscar may have been near major hurricane strength when it hit Cuba, but that’s something meteorologists won’t be sure of until a postseason analysis is conducted by the National Hurricane Center.

It’s still not the smallest tropical cyclone on record, though. Tropical Storm Marco, which <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/138/5/2009mwr3174.1.xml" target=_blank>formed</a> in the Bay of Campeche in October 2008, had tropical storm-force winds that only reached 11.5 miles outward from the center. Some meteorologists affectionally refer to the storm as “Little Marco.”

Harvard University, B.A. Atmospheric Sciences

Matthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for Capital Weather Gang. He earned a B.A. in atmospheric sciences from Harvard University in 2019, and has contributed to The Washington Post since he was 18. He is an avid storm chaser and adventurer, and covers all types of weather, climate science, and astronomy.

Matthew Cappucci

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is officially over

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