Hurricane Season Narrowly Misses Records

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

2020 was certainly an eventful year for hurricanes and tropical storms. In fact, we narrowly missed record numbers on multiple metrics. Here’s USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey.

Rippey… “One of those was the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic in a single season. We had 13 hurricanes this year. The record of 15 set back in the previous record-setting season of 2005 still stands. Another record that was narrowly missed is the U.S. hurricane landfalls. We had six of those in 2020, the record set way back in 1887 of seven hurricanes still stands.”

As many of you know, five of those six hurricanes this year made landfall along the gulf coast.

Rippey… “Looking at those six hurricanes that struck the United States, five of them made landfall along the Gulf coast while we had one East making landfall along the Atlantic coast.”

The location of these hurricanes is also not all that much different from the record-breaking year.

Rippey… “Kind of interesting to note that in that record setting year of 1887, all seven of those hurricanes made landfall on the Gulf coast of the United States.”

Will climate change continue to increase the frequency of these hurricanes in the future? Many agricultural scientists are looking for ways to make our agriculture more resilient to these extreme conditions.