1950-1954

1950

How is the intensity of a hurricane season measured? One way is by simply counting the number of TS's and hurricanes. But some seasons have a profusion of weak TS's, and some have quite a few major hurricanes. How can that be accounted for? ACE. Anyway, by ACE, the 1950 season is the second most intense ever. (The most intense is 2005.)

1950 was also the first year for named storms. The names came from the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet, Able Baker Charlie etc. This system was used for 1950, 1951, 1952. The name list was the same every year: ie, the first storm was Able in all three years. No names were retired.

Two interesting hurricanes struck this year, Easy and King. Both were (obv) Florida hurricanes. Easy made landfall a little north of Tampa after executing two loops offshore. Those loops produced a prodigious amount of rainfall near the coast, over 40 inches in some places which is an amazingly high amount of rain. The first February 2010 snowstorm in Philly produced 28 inches (officially) - that's about 2 inches of rain. King is notable for being one of the rare major hurricanes to directly make landfall on the core of a city: Miami, in this case. It caused a fair amount of damage in the area, and a similar landfall today would be an acid test for Miami's skyscrapers (which probably weren't around in 1950).

1951

Two notable storms, Able and Charlie. Able is known as the only major hurricane ever in May, and is one of my favorite storms because of that distinction and its strange track. However, Able did little damage in the US: its main effect was high surf and presumably radical waves. Charlie did not hit Florida, or even the US: it hit the Yucatan. The storm caused heavy rain in Jamaica and destruction of crops in the Yucatan. It later hit Tampico still as a major hurricane and heavily damaged that city.

1952

Two notable storms: an unnamed storm and Fox. The unnamed storm is probably unnamed because it formed on Groundhog Day. We do not know of any other tropical storm that formed in February in any year. The storm made landfall in southwest Florida around the Everglades. Fox, on the other hand, is notable because of its strength, making landfall in Cuba as a major hurricane, where it caused the customary heavy damage.

1953

This was the first year when female names were used for the storms. Male names did not start to be used until 1979. Two notable storms: Alice and Florence. Alice is notable because it formed in May and had a strange track. Florence caused heavy rainfall in Florida and Alabama.

1954

Three notable storms: Carol, Edna, and Hazel. Carol was a slightly weaker and smaller version of the 1938 hurricane when it struck Long Island and Connecticut. Heavy damage. Edna hit Maine and Atlantic Canada. Heavy damage.

Hazel was mean. Puerto Rico suffered from bad flooding. In true Haitian fashion, a thousand people died. Hazel then made landfall as a Cat-4 (the only one ever) in North Carolina, causing heavy damage in Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, and other areas I'm not familiar with. Even Raleigh received winds over 100mph. Plenty of flooding in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. Hazel kept going and became extratropical as it tracked into Canada. Around Toronto, the storm caused massive floods, destroying many bridges and other structures. The storm probably caused the worst flood in Toronto's history. Hazel was certainly the most severe hurricane for Toronto ever (not that there are many other contenders) and quite possibly the worst hurricane for Canada ever (Juan in 2003 would be the other contender).