A 'Below Average' Atlantic Hurricane Season? It's Been Years Since That Happened

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T​he 2023 Atlantic hurricane season could be less active than usual for the first time in years, though that's no guarantee of a quiet season as far as impacts are concerned.

Does it seem like every hurricane season lately has been busy, active, destructive, awful or whatever adjective you'd like to fill in the blank?

We understand the sentiment, but quieter hurricane seasons do happen. It's just been a while since we've had one.

There are conflicting signals in the 2023 season such as a developing El Niño, which tends to suppress storms, and very warm Atlantic Ocean water, which tends to amplify storms.

O​ne of the p​reliminary outlooks issued in April from Colorado State University suggested the upcoming season may be slightly less active than average. W​e haven't heard a somewhat muted tone in an outlook in quite some time.

Here is what an average hurricane season looks like. Over the 30-year period from 1991 through 2020, an average of 14 storms formed each season, seven of which became hurricanes and three of which became at least Category 3 wind intensity. About one to two of those hurricanes usually make landfall in the U.S., according to statistics compiled by NOAA.

T​hat's generally what happened in 2022. The 2022 season produced 14 storms, eight of which became hurricanes, two Category 3-plus hurricanes and two mainland U.S. hurricanes that made landfall (Ian and Nicole), along with a Puerto Rico landfall from Fiona.

Most of these tallies were near the longer-term averages. Of course, the impacts from Fiona, Ian and Nicole were far from average.

I​t's been eight years since the last truly quiet season. In 2015, only 11 storms formed, four of which became hurricanes, and only two strengthened to Category 3 or stronger.

T​hat was also the last year we didn't have a single U.S. hurricane landfall.

E​l Niño played a major role in 2015 – one factor behind the less active season was one of the strongest El Niños on record.

This periodic warming of the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean tends to produce stronger wind shear and sinking air over the Caribbean Sea and adjacent areas of the Atlantic Basin. Those suppressing factors tend to weaken or rip apart a tropical cyclone.

This increased wind shear in 2015 contributed to the demise of five storms in the heart of that season.

2​015 was part of a three-year quiet stretch. In 2014, six hurricanes formed, but only eight total storms developed that entire season. That was the least in any year since 1997.

El Niño hadn't become established yet in 2014, but wind shear from the Caribbean Sea to the west African coast was the second-highest on record from June through August. The atmosphere was also unusually stable and not supportive of the thunderstorms needed to develop and maintain tropical cyclones in that same strip of the tropical Atlantic Ocean in 2014.

The 2013 season was even more strange. Of 14 storms that year, only two managed to become hurricanes, tied for the fewest in any hurricane season in the satellite era (since the mid-1960s).

Neither of those two hurricanes managed to reach Category 2 status, something that hadn't happened in any season since 1968.

Despite a lack of an El Niño, eight of that season's storms eventually succumbed to either dry air, strong wind shear or both.

N​otice the low ACE indices from 2013 through 2015 in the graph below. Each of those seasons had roughly half or less of the average ACE.

Following that, six straight seasons from 2016 through 2021 were more active than average.

Interestingly, by this ACE metric, 2022 was actually markedly below average. That was due to a lack of longer-lived Cape Verde storms that track from near West Africa across the Atlantic Basin, as well as a rare August that failed to generate a single storm.

T​here have been other quieter seasons recently. Some other quiet seasons this century included 2009 (nine storms, three hurricanes during a weak to moderate El Niño) and 2006 (only 10 storms the year following the record 2005 season).

During the cool phase of a 20- to 40-year oscillation of North Atlantic Ocean sea-surface temperatures known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, less active hurricane seasons were common in the 1980s and early 1990s. Eight of the 15 hurricane seasons from 1980 through 1994 produced less than 10 storms.

Quieter seasons can still be dangerous. Immediately following another strong El Niño, only four named storms formed in 1983, the least in any season in the satellite era.

However, one was Category 3 Hurricane Alicia, which ransacked the Houston metro area with destructive winds and storm surge flooding.

The three "quiet" years in the 2010s still managed to produce three storms that were deadly and/or destructive enough to be retired from future use in name lists: Hurricane Ingrid (2013), Tropical Storm Erika (2015) and Hurricane Joaquin (2015).

It only takes one landfall to have a damaging impact, whether it's the nation's only landfall, or one of many in a given hurricane season.

It's been a terrible recent stretch. Consider just the past three seasons:

-Sixty-five named storms from 2020 through 2022 combined. The name lists were used up in 2020 and 2021, the first time that happened in back-to-back seasons.

-Twenty-nine total hurricanes was more than four seasons' worth combined into three.

-Twenty-one storms made a mainland U.S. landfall, 10 of which were hurricanes.

But it hasn't only been the past three years.

Dorian's catastrophic stall over the Bahamas happened in 2019. Florence's record-wet siege in the Carolinas was followed by Category 5 Michael's pummeling of the Florida Panhandle in 2018. In 2017, the catastrophic trio of Harvey, Irma and Maria were among 10 hurricanes that year.

According to NOAA's National Centers For Environmental Information, there have been 22 tropical storms and hurricanes that have each produced at least $1 billion of damage in the U.S. from 2016 through 2022. The total damage toll from those 22 storms was a staggering $656 billion dollars.

Whether an active or quiet season is forecast, you should be prepared every year.

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