the deadliest, costliest, and most intense united states hurricanes ...

(7) What was the largest number of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean at the same time?
According to information on the current version of the master data file of Neumann et al. (1999).
until September 25, 1998 there had not been four hurricanes in the North Atlantic at the same
time in over 100 years. Hurricanes Georges, Ivan, Jeanne and Karl persisted into September 2Th.
1998 as hurricanes. One hundred five years earlier, on August 22, 1893 four hurricanes
co-existed, one of them killing an estimated 1,000-2,000 people in Georgia-South Carolina. On
September 11, 1961, three hurricanes and possibly a fourth occurred simultaneously. The onl)"
other years after 1900 with three hurricanes on the map at the same time were 1950 and 1967" In
1971 from September 10 to 12, there were five tropical cyclones at the same time; however.
while most of these ultimately achieved hurricane intensity, there were never more than two
hurricanes at anyone time.
(8) How many direct hits by hurricanes of various categories have affected each state?
Table 9, updated from Hebert et al. (1997), shows the number of hurricanes affecting (direct hits)
the United States and individual states. The 'table shows that, on the average, close to ~
hurricanes eveD: three years (1.63 per year) strike the United States, while two major hurricanes
cross the U.S. coast every three years (0.64 per year). Other noteworthy facts, updated from
Hebert et al. (1997), are: 1.) Thirty-six percent of all U.S. hurricanes hit Florida; 2.) Seventysix
percent of category 4 or higher hurricanes have hit either Florida or Texas; 3.) Approximately
half the hurricanes to strike the middle Gulf coast, southern Florida and New York were major
hurricanes.
Tab Ie 9. H u rric 8 n e dire c I hils 0 n Ih e m 8 in 18 n d U. S co 8 I Ilin e 8 n d fo r in d iv id U 8 I I la Ie S
1900 -2 0 0 0 by Sa ffirlS im pion C a Ie gory. Up d 8 Ie d fro m H e b e rl e I a I. (1887)
CATEGORY NUMBER
AREA 1 2 3 4 5
ALL
MAJOR
HURRICANES
U.S(TexastoMaine) 61 39 46 15 2 165 65
Texas 12 9 10 6 0 37 16
(N 0 rth) 7 3 3 4 0 17 7
(Central) 2 2 1 1 0 6 2
(South) 3 4 6 1 0 14 7
Louisiana 9 5 8 3 1 26 12
Mississippi 1 2 5 0 1 9 6
A la b a m a 5 2 5 0 0 1 2 5
Florida 19 17 17 6 1 60 24
(Northwest) 10 8 7 0 0 25 7
(N ortheast) 2 7 0 0 0 9 0
(Southwest) 7 3 6 2 1 19 8
(Southeast) 6 11 7 4 0 28 11
G eo rg ia 1 4 0 0 0 5 0
Sou th C a ro lin a 6 4 2 2 0 1 4 4
North C a ro lin a 1 0 6 1 0 1. 0 27 1 1
Virginia 2 1 1. 0 0 4 1 .
Maryland 0 1. 0 0 0 1 .0
De la w 8 re 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
New J e r. e y
New York
1.
3
0
l'
0
5. 0 0
1 .0
9 5 .
Connecticut 2 3' 3. 0 0 8 3 .
Rhode 1.land 0 2. 3. 0 0 5 .3 .
Massachusetts 2 2' 2. 0 0 6 2 .
New Hampshire 1.1.0 0 0 2. 0
M a in e 5. 0 0 0 0 5 0
Note s
.Indicate. all hurricane. in this group were moving faster than 30 m ph.
State totals will not equal U S totals. and Texas or Florida totals will
not nece.s8rlly equ81sum of section81 tot8ls.
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