The 2018 hurricane season is finished

What did we learn and what’s next?

It’s a day we all look forward to in South Florida: November 30 — the official end of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Mercifully, South Florida’s hugely populated Miami-to-Palm Beach metropolitan corridor was spared a direct hit yet again. This despite 2018 being the third straight busier-than-average hurricane season, as well as the third straight season to feature a major hurricane either skirting or striking the Sunshine State.

After Matthew’s close shave up Florida’s east coast in 2016 and Irma’s catastrophic hit on the Florida Keys in 2017, the costliest hurricane season on record, Hurricane Michael came ashore in the Florida Panhandle on Oct. 10, 2018 as the fourth-strongest wind storm on record to make landfall on the continental United States, according to federal weather officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Michael, which spun out of the Caribbean Sea and surprised virtually everybody by exploding into a high-range Category 4 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, landed on the Florida Panhandle on Oct. 10 with catastrophic winds measuring 155 mph. The damage to Mexico Beach, a small town near Panama City, was apocalyptic. As of Thursday, the death toll in Florida was at least 43, according to media reports.

Busier than average

NOAA forecasters had initially expected a near-normal to abovenormal season, with five to nine hurricanes, with up to four of those becoming major hurricanes. It called for 10 to 16 named storms, which refers to tropical storms or hurricanes.

That prediction was then reduced to slightly fewer storms in an August update. Hurricane experts at Colorado State University also issued a similar update to their seasonal outlook.

In an average year, the Atlantic hurricane basin, which includes the Atlantic Ocean as well the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, will see 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

The 2018 season spawned 15 named storms, including eight hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

“The 2018 season fell within NOAA’s predicted ranges in our pre-season outlook issued in late May,” said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, in a statement.

“However, the overall season was more active than predicted in the updated outlook issued in early August,” Bell said. “Warmer Atlantic Ocean temperatures, a stronger west-African monsoon and the fact that El Nino did not form in time to suppress the season helped to enhance storm development.”

Florence

In addition to Michael, 2018 will also be remembered for Hurricane Florence, the season’s first

major hurricane, which flared up into a Category 4 storm as it crossed the Atlantic, weakened to a tropical storm, then regained Category 4 status.

Its wind strength would fall to Category 1 status before making landfall near Wrightsville Beach, N.C., on September 14, but forecasters and emergency managers had been trying to hammer home the point that the water, not the wind, would be the worst part of Florence.

Flooding was widespread. Rain fell in feet, not inches, in certain places. Inundation from storm surge was also catastrophic. The U.S. death toll was 30, with most of the fatalities occurring in North Carolina.

The names

The named storms of 2018 included Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, and Oscar.

Six lists of storm names are rotated and reused every six years. However, when a storm is particularly destructive, its name is taken out of circulation. After 2018, the names Michael and Florence will likely be retired.

Another year of pre-season activity

NOAA noted that it was the fourth consecutive year in which a tropical cyclone came to life before the official June 1 start of the season. Tropical Storm Alberto formed on May 25 and came ashore near Laguna Beach in the Florida Panhandle, near Panama City, on May 29, with winds measuring 45 mph. Alberto was blamed for eight deaths in the U.S., including a TV news anchor and photojournalist who were killed when a tree fell on their vehicle in North Carolina.

Four at the same time

Four named storms going at the same time? It happened in the middle of September, when Florence, Helene, Isaac and Joyce were all churning. The last time the Atlantic hurricane zone saw four named storms at the same time was 2008, NOAA said.

Climate change

The NOAA summary of this year’s hurricane season doesn’t mention whether, or how, climate change might be impacting the severity and frequency of hurricanes.

But the U.S. government’s Fourth National Climate Assessment, released Nov. 22, warns that scientists expect climate change to make powerful storms like 2017’s Irma, the strongest hurricane ever observed in the open Atlantic, more common.

Chapter 19 of the climate assessment report, the chapter dedicated to the U.S. Southeast, includes this warning:

“High-intensity hurricanes such as Irma are expected to become more common in the future due to climate change. Rapid intensification of storms is also more likely as the climate warms, even though there is also some historical evidence that the same conditions that lead to this intensification also act to weaken hurricane intensity near the U.S. coast, but it is unclear whether this relationship will continue as the climate warms further.”

2019?

Federal officials say the end of the hurricane season is a good time for residents in potential hurricane impact zones to start improving hurricane preparedness plans for the next year.

The Atlantic hurricane season officially runs from June 1 through Nov. 30 every year — but as seen with Alberto earlier this year, storms can and do occur outside of that window.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is set to give its first outlook for the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season in May.