What

Because I have been told to update. Anyway, I've been looking at hurricane tracks again, and now I wish to start a multi-part series on hurricanes that interest me, starting with the year 1900 and going until the present. Today, 1900-1904.

1900

There may have been other storms, but only one matters.

1901

Not many interesting storms year. This storm is probably the most interesting, because of its southward motion off the NC coast.

1902

Only five storms, so definitely a boring season. One storm hit Texas on an unusual coast-hugging track - generally storms hit Texas more perpendicularly to the coastline.

1903

This season actually has a pretty memorable storm, the so called Vagabond hurricane, which made its only landfall at Atlantic City. No hurricane has directly hit New Jersey since then, although plenty of storms have impacted New Jersey more indirectly. Usually, East Coast hurricanes hit North Carolina and move northeast, passing over the mid-Atlantic states, or they hit Long Island and New England.

1904

Nothing interesting in this season, but I always appreciate a looping hurricane. That storm would probably be a major flood event for SW Florida today.

(edit) In honor of TS Bonnie's recent formation I am inspired to go further. I'll use the Wikipedia tracks instead of the Unisys tracks in this edit, because I feel like it. Also Wikipedia provides more information about the storms, like death tolls.

1905

Little of note formed in this season: four tropical storms and one hurricane. The hurricane did bring TS-force winds to Bermuda.

1906

This season was definitely busier. One storm killed 132+ people as it hit the Gulf Coast around Mobile and Pensacola. Another storm caused flooding in Nicaragua and heavy damage in the Florida Keys, an area we will definitely be revisiting. (Foreshadowing alert.) Also, its path is one of the strangest I've seen. Hurricanes aren't supposed to move southwest like that. Kinda reminds me of Gordon (1994) a bit.

1907

No hurricanes formed during this season, and only five tropical storms formed. None had particularly interesting tracks, although two managed to hit about the same spot in Florida. Even Wikipedia doesn't have anything interesting to say about any storm in this season.

1908

1908 had a couple weird storms. One storm formed in March. I cannot think of any other storm that formed in the Atlantic in March. Although the map has no arrows, it moved in the southwest direction. Another hurricane formed in May - it's pretty rare for any storm to form in May, although it does happen sometimes. Here is the strongest storm of the season, which probably caused heavy damage in the Bahamas.

1909

This season had several severe storms. One storm hit south Texas with about the same intensity as Dolly (2008) and Alex (2010), two other storms that also hit the border region recently. But who cares about South Texas! Houston is much more important, and a cat-3 storm hit Freeport that year. This storm would cause a major fuss today. Another hurricane killed 4,000 or so people in Monterrey after its heavy rains destroyed a nearby dam. And the final hurricane I will mention struck Louisiana and fucked up the coastline around there pretty bad. This storm would cause a huge media freakout today - and it's no Gustav, either, it was apparently a very large storm. It flooded (a much less populated) New Orleans in true Katrina fashion, and there have been a hundred years of wetland degradation since then. 1909 was a mean year for tropical cyclones in the Atlantic. The only year meaner in this decade was 1900. And I'm even passing over some of the cyclones in 1909: another major hurricane hit Havana and the Keys, and the final hurricane of the season hit Jamaica and Haiti.

I am moved to comment about the pre-satellite era. In a lot of these years it is possible that some storms, the ones far out to sea, were simply not detected. Some storms just never hit land or even come close, but they can still be very powerful, like Bill (2009). Also, wind measurements can be tough, since hurricane force winds destroy most anemometers. On land tree damage (and structural damage) can serve as a proxy, but there ain't many trees on the sea surface.

I'll start on the 1910s tomorrow.