50 Fun Facts About Hard Hurricanes

Typhoon Tip's world-record low sea-level pressure, set in October 1979, was what?

Tip was also the largest tropical cyclone ever recorded and was known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Warling.

Hurricane Wilma's 2005 rapid intensification set an Atlantic record with a 24-hour pressure drop of how much?

Wilma became the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record by pressure and its eye shrank to 2.3 miles across.

Which storm is the Western Hemisphere's second-most intense by pressure, after Wilma?

Wilma is the most intense in the Atlantic basin, but Patricia in the eastern Pacific beat it in 2015 and holds the wind record at 215 mph.

Which two Atlantic hurricanes are the only ones ever to reach sustained winds of 190 mph?

Allen's 190 mph was the Western Hemisphere record until Patricia's 215 mph in 2015.

The 1935 Labor Day hurricane made landfall near Long Key, Florida, with what central pressure?

Its 185 mph landfall winds are tied with Dorian and Melissa as the strongest Atlantic landfall on record.

Which storm was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record by diameter, spanning 1,150 miles?

Most of its US damage came after it became a Category 1-equivalent extratropical cyclone off the Northeast.

Which 1970 storm is the deadliest tropical cyclone on record, killing at least 300,000 people?

It struck East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, on 12 November 1970 with a storm surge that swamped the Ganges Delta islands.

Which country lost at least 138,000 people to Cyclone Nargis in May 2008?

It remains the worst natural disaster in the country's recorded history, and the toll may have been under-reported.

Mitch in 1998 is the second-deadliest Atlantic storm on record, behind which one?

Mitch killed 11,374 people in Central America; the 1780 storm killed at least 22,000 in the Caribbean.

Typhoon Haiyan killed at least 6,300 people in 2013 in which region of the Philippines?

It was known locally as Super Typhoon Yolanda and is among the most intense tropical cyclones ever recorded.

The 1900 Galveston hurricane, the deadliest US natural disaster, is credited with how many deaths?

Estimates range from 6,000 to 12,000, most from a storm surge of 8 to 12 feet across the island city.

The Okeechobee storm of 1928 ranks as the fourth-deadliest in US history, behind Galveston, Maria and which 1899 storm?

The Okeechobee storm remains the deadliest disaster in Florida's history.

Roughly what percentage of New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina in 2005?

Katrina killed 1,392 people, the most of any US hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee storm, and caused about $125 billion in damage.

Of Hurricane Maria's 3,059 deaths in 2017, how many were in Puerto Rico?

It was the most intense tropical cyclone worldwide that year and the deadliest ever to hit Dominica.

Hurricane Andrew was Florida's costliest hurricane until which storm surpassed it 25 years later?

Andrew regained Category 5 strength before landfall at Elliott Key and Homestead in August 1992.

Hurricane Harvey ended a record drought of how many years without a major hurricane landfall in the US?

The last had been Wilma in 2005; Harvey tied Katrina as the costliest storm on record.

Camille in 1969 was one of how many Atlantic hurricanes to strike the US as a Category 5?

The others were the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, Andrew in 1992 and Michael in 2018.

Hurricane Betsy of 1965 was the first Atlantic hurricane to do what?

Its erratic track and rapid approach gave New Orleans little time to prepare; total damage was about $1.43 billion.

After Haiti and the US, Hurricane Hazel (1954) killed 81 more people mostly in which city?

It struck the Carolinas as a Category 4 and reached Canada as an extratropical storm.

Which 2019 hurricane ties the 1935 Labor Day hurricane for strongest Atlantic landfall by winds?

It stalled over the Bahamas with 185 mph winds and became the islands' worst natural disaster.

Hurricane Ian (2022) was the deadliest to hit Florida since which decade?

It was also the strongest Florida landfall since Michael in 2018.

Hurricane Helene in 2024 was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since which storm?

It was the strongest hurricane on record to strike Florida's Big Bend and the deadliest to hit the US mainland since Katrina.

Hurricane Ida in 2021 became which state's second-most damaging hurricane, after Katrina?

It struck on the 16th anniversary of Katrina's landfall.

Hurricane Otis made a devastating Category 5 landfall in October 2023 near which Mexican city?

Its explosive intensification caught forecasters off guard, jumping from tropical storm to Category 5 in about a day.

Which two Atlantic hurricanes are the only ones to reach Category 5 in July?

Beryl broke a string of formation and intensity records in the extremely active 2024 season.

Which 2017 storm was the easternmost major hurricane on record in the Atlantic, later battering Ireland?

It was regarded as the worst storm to affect Ireland in 50 years.

Which 2005 storm made a rare landfall on the Iberian Peninsula after forming over water thought too cold?

It arrived in Spain as a tropical depression and its remnants drifted into the Mediterranean.

How many Greek-letter names did the National Hurricane Center use in the record 2005 season?

The 2020 season went further with 30 named storms and was the last to use the Greek alphabet.

How many named storms formed in the record-setting 2020 Atlantic season?

Fourteen became hurricanes and a record-tying seven became major hurricanes.

Herbert Saffir came up with his wind scale while doing what job in 1969?

Robert Simpson, then NHC director, added the storm surge and flooding effects; the scale went public in 1973.

Which director replaced Robert Simpson at the National Hurricane Center in 1974?

The scale had been introduced to the public a year earlier, in 1973.

Which is the more widely used definition of rapid intensification?

The NHC's related 'rapid deepening' means a pressure fall of at least 42 mbar in 24 hours.

Sakuhei Fujiwhara's 1921 paper on interacting cyclones was itself based on a paper from which year?

The effect only gained popularity in the United States after World War II.

Tropical cyclones rarely form within how many degrees of the equator, for lack of Coriolis force?

Storms also need sea surface temperatures of around 27 C and low vertical wind shear.

An average Atlantic season produces about how many Cape Verde hurricanes?

They form from tropical waves leaving West Africa and are often the season's largest storms because of the ocean they cross.

Which Queensland meteorologist is credited with first naming weather systems, between 1887 and 1907?

The practice lapsed after he retired and revived for the Western Pacific late in World War II.

Atlantic hurricane name lists skip which letters?

Six lists rotate every six years, alternating male and female names, with notorious names retired.

Besides NOAA, which unit flies the US Hurricane Hunter missions?

Navy units did fly such missions in the past, and other Air Force units have too.

The National Hurricane Center sits on the campus of which school?

It shares the site with the Miami office of the National Weather Service; the hurricane warning office had moved to Miami from Jacksonville in 1943.

TIROS-1, the first operational weather satellite, was launched on 1 April 1960 by which rocket?

It transmitted television pictures until an electrical failure on June 15 the same year.

Which then-unknown reporter's live coverage of Hurricane Carla in 1961 set the template for TV storm reporting?

Radar showed Carla's rain bands stretching about 520 miles from its center.

Roughly how many people died in the 1938 New England hurricane, the 'Long Island Express'?

Battery Park in Manhattan recorded sustained winds of 70 mph with gusts to 80 as it raced north.

Cyclone Tracy destroyed which Australian city on Christmas Day 1974?

Residents had ignored warnings partly because an earlier cyclone, Selma, had passed harmlessly west of the city.

Cyclone Idai (March 2019) hit Zimbabwe, Malawi and which country where it made landfall?

More than 1,500 people died and it lingered as a depression over land for five days before re-forming.

Steven Spielberg's crew was caught by which 1992 hurricane on Kauai while shooting Jurassic Park?

Footage of the storm battering the coast ended up in the finished film.

In which ocean basin do strong wind shear and a weak Intertropical Convergence Zone make tropical cyclones very rare?

Around 80 to 90 named tropical cyclones form worldwide each year, almost none of them there.

In the North Indian basin, tropical storms peak in which two months?

The monsoon suppresses storms in mid-summer, so the season has two peaks either side of it.

Which storm was the deadliest hurricane in Central American history until Mitch surpassed it in 1998?

Both storms killed thousands in Honduras and neighbouring countries.

How many breaches did Katrina's storm surge cause in New Orleans' flood protection structures on August 29, 2005?

Fifty-three breaches submerged 80% of the city; engineers later blamed design flaws for two-thirds of the flooding.

In which year did the NHC strip pressure and storm surge from the Saffir–Simpson scale, making it a pure wind scale?

The wind-only version was announced in 2009 and became operational on May 15, 2010; Category 4 was widened by 1 mph in 2012.