2023 Atlantic hurricane season ends
The end of November marks the official end of the 4th busiest Atlantic Hurricane Season on record.
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The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season officially ends with 20 named storms, that's the 4th most on record. Although the season had more storms than the 14 storms we saw last year (which is the climatological average), it may have seemed more quiet because fewer storms made landfall.
The only storm to make landfall in the United States was Idalia, a major hurricane with maximum sustained winds estimated at 125 mph at landfall. The storm made landfall just before 8 a.m. on Aug. 30 in Keaton Beach on the Florida's Nature Coast.
Franklin was another notable storm this year. It was a tropical storm when it made landfall as a tropical storm, but produced devastating flooding. Later, Hurricane Lee had big impacts in Canada. The storm was no longer tropical when it made landfall, but had winds estimated near hurricane force. The storm was indirectly responsible for a fatality in our area off the coast of New Jersey.
RELATED: Boat capsizes due to swells from Hurricane Lee
Another way to measure the intensity of the hurricane season is by the "Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE)." The scale was created by researchers at Colorado State University to determine the overall energy created by tropical systems each year. The average ACE is 123, but this was 146. It's a similar output to the very busy 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season and more than the record shattering 2020 Hurricane Season. In 2021, eight hurricanes made landfall in the United States which was the third highest on record. In 2020, a record breaking 12 hurricanes made landfall and seven of them were "billion-dollar disasters."
In the Pacific, Hurricane Hilary threatened California prompting tropical storm warnings for the first time on record in the state. The winds were weaker than anticipated, but the rain flooded desert roads during what is considered the driest time of the year.
