Hey! When was the last time there was a year with NO Atlantic hurricanes?

[theophilus]

How weird would that be? What good things do hurricanes do? I know they often bring much needed rain. I imagine they do many good things. They just happen to be inconvenient to people.

[Warpy]

1. Strong fronts with shear winds keep coming through

plus the Atlantic off the coast of Africa has been slow to warm. The combination has been causing all those storms moving offshore near the Azores to fall apart.

My guess is that it won't last.

[theophilus]

2. Thanks for the info. I just had the thought, "Are there years with not

one single hurricane in the Atlantic?"

[northzax]

3. you mean no hurricanes that struck land?

or no hurricanes at all? ever since 1950, when they started naming storms, there have been no years without at least 4 named storms.

and rain isn't the basic purpose of hurricanes, the major benefit of 'canes and TSs is moving heat from the tropics to the arctic.

on edit, just found this link from my old meteorology class, http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/index.html there have been no years since 1851 (when this database goes back to) that did not have an Atlantic Hurricane. and remember, this was before satelites or planes, so it's just the ones that either made landfall or were observed at sea by a passing vessel.

[theophilus]

4. I was curious about years with no hurricanes at all. I guess it would

be "a miracle". Has it ever happened?

[northzax]

6. unlikely in recorded history

but of course, before about 1800, we'd have little idea of most storms. Maybe there were a few years during the Little Ice Age where the wind and water patterns across the equator were just right to not allow any storms to balloon to hurricane standards, but since then, not a chance.

[skids]

5. Don't get your hopes up, or down, or whatnot.

This "dry spell" can't last. In fact NOAA opened a couple of investigational areas this afternoon, one over the bahamas and a non-tropical one east of FL.

And then promptly their satellite loop data went offline so nobody can watch the potential formation :grr:.

(On edit: who thinks that maybe what's going on is that hurricane season is shifting later into the year?)

[LiberalEsto]

7. Maybe they turned off the secret Hurricane Machine

this year after the disaster caused by Katrina.