A strange season: no US hurricane landfalls through September
Despite an active Atlantic, an unusual run of storms steering out to sea left the US coast untouched for an unusually long stretch.
In an unusual twist, the United States went through the end of September without a single hurricane making landfall, one of the longest such stretches to open a season in years, even as the Atlantic produced its typical share of storms.
The reason lay not in a lack of hurricanes but in the atmospheric steering patterns that guide them. A persistent configuration of high and low pressure systems repeatedly nudged storms northward and out to sea before they could reach the US coast, sparing the mainland while some storms threatened islands and shipping lanes.
Forecasters cautioned against complacency, noting that the peak of hurricane season extends into the autumn and that a quiet stretch can end abruptly. They stressed, as always, that the number of landfalls in a season is largely a matter of chance and steering currents, and that a single late-season strike can be devastating.
The lull offered a reminder that seasonal activity and landfall risk are distinct. A busy season can produce few US strikes if the atmospheric patterns are unfavourable for storms reaching the coast, while a quiet season can still bring catastrophe if one storm finds its way ashore.
For coastal residents, forecasters repeated the perennial message: preparedness should never depend on how the season has gone so far. The steering patterns that had kept storms at bay could shift at any time, and the season was far from over.