2014 Hurricane Season in Review: Eight Things We'll Remember

On the one hand, the Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, produced the fewest tropical cyclones and fewest named storms since 1997.

On the other hand, the Atlantic basin brought the strongest landfalling hurricane in the mainland U.S. in six years, and later brought the strongest hurricane anywhere in the Atlantic basin in four years.

Meanwhile, what the Atlantic side of North America may have lacked in tropical trouble, the Pacific side more than made up for.

Here are eight things we’ll remember from the 2014 season.

By the Numbers: Quiet Atlantic, Hyperactive Pacific

In terms of the number of storms and their combined energy, the Atlantic hurricane season was quieter than average, while the Eastern Pacific was extremely hectic.

In the Atlantic basin, just nine tropical cyclones formed in 2014, of which eight were named (Tropical Depression Two was the exception). On both counts it was the sparsest Atlantic hurricane season since 1997, when there were also eight named and nine total tropical cyclones.

The Eastern Pacific basin, however, yielded 20 named storms – the most since 1992, which holds the record with 24 named storms. Fifteen of this year’s 20 named storms became hurricanes.

An additional two named storms formed in the Central Pacific, one of which became a hurricane. The total of 16 Pacific hurricanes in 2014 ties the modern record for most hurricanes in one season, previously set in 1990 and 1992. Seven of those hurricanes reached Category 4 or higher status in 2014, the most on record.

Several individual Pacific hurricanes set records. Amanda became the strongest May hurricane on record in the Eastern Pacific basin. Marie became the sixth-strongest Pacific hurricane on record, with a minimum barometric pressure of 918 millibars. Hurricane Ana became the longest-lived Central Pacific tropical cyclone in the satellite era, lasting 13 days (Oct. 13-26) in that basin.

Arthur: Gentle Giant

By maximum sustained wind speed, Hurricane Arthur was the strongest hurricane to make landfall on the U.S. mainland in six years. Arthur made landfall in eastern North Carolina late on July 3 with 100-mph winds, the first Category 2 or stronger landfall in the Lower 48 since Hurricane Ike hit Texas in 2008.

Yet paradoxically, Arthur achieved a pair of much more desirable distinctions. It was the first hurricane to make landfall on the U.S. mainland without causing any direct fatalities here in 12 years, since Hurricane Lili hit Louisiana in 2002. And it was the first hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. without causing any fatalities at all on American soil -- either direct or indirect -- since Hurricane Babe hit Louisiana in 1977. (Arthur was deemed indirectly responsible for one death in Canada.)

For a Category 2 hurricane, damage from Arthur was remarkably low. According to NOAA's storm database, Arthur did about $2.4 million in damage to North Carolina and another $889,000 in damage due to flooding and severe thunderstorms in Massachusetts, along with a smattering of small-dollar damage in other East Coast states.

Arthur also made history in another way -- its landfall in North Carolina came earlier in the season than any other North Carolina hurricane in modern recordkeeping.

(MORE: Hurricane Arthur Recap)

Bermuda’s Double Whammy

Bermuda experienced an unprecedented double whammy in 2014, as two named storms made landfall there just six days apart: Hurricane Fay on Oct. 12, followed by Hurricane Gonzalo on Oct. 18.

The island had never been affected by two named storms so close together in time, let alone seen both of them make landfall on the tiny cluster of islands, which have a combined land area of less than 21 square miles, about three-fifths the size of Manhattan.

Fay was unexpectedly damaging, knocking out power to the vast majority of Bermuda’s residents. Cleanup had to be expedited as Gonzalo quickly followed; Gonzalo was Bermuda’s strongest and most damaging hurricane since Fabian in 2003. Gonzalo left behind an estimated $200 million to $400 million in damage.

Before striking Bermuda, Gonzalo peaked as a Category 4 hurricane, making it the strongest hurricane anywhere in the Atlantic basin (as measured by top sustained winds) since Igor in September 2010.

Deadliest Atlantic Storm Barely Touched Land

The deadliest Atlantic storm of the season, Hurricane Cristobal, barely touched land at all.

Based on preliminary best track data from NOAA, Cristobal’s center may have barely nicked the islands of Providenciales and Mayaguana, which are in the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas, respectively. The National Hurricane Center did not make any formal declarations of landfall during Cristobal’s time as a tropical cyclone.

Atlantic: Fewer Storms, But More Storm Power

While the Atlantic basin only had eight named storms, a far cry from the 14 storms in 2013, the storms packed more of a punch.

As the result of stronger storms such as Arthur and Gonzalo mentioned above, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index for the Atlantic basin finished at 66, almost double the score of 36 from 2013.

So, despite producing barely half as many storms as last year, this season was almost twice as energetic. Still, this year’s ACE was still well below the long-term average of 110.

(MORE: ACE index data on Weather Underground)

Historic Landfalls: Baja California and Hawaii

Two of this year’s Pacific hurricanes made landfall in historic fashion.

Hurricane Iselle reached the Big Island of Hawaii as a high-end tropical storm on Aug. 8, becoming the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall on that island. Significant wind damage and power outages occurred on most of the Hawaiian Islands due to Iselle.

Hurricane Odile slammed into the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California on Sept. 14 as a Category 3 storm with 125-mph winds, tying 1967’s Hurricane Olivia as the strongest landfalling hurricane on record on the Baja California peninsula.

(RECAP: Hurricane Odile Minute-By-Minute As It Happened)

Tourist destinations such as Cabo San Lucas were heavily damaged by the storm, with losses estimated at over $1 billion. Five people died in Baja California, and flooding from Odile caused damage and several deaths across northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S.

Globe-Trotting Genevieve

Genevieve had arguably the most unusual journey of any tropical cyclone in the world in 2014. For days after its initial formation on July 25, it sputtered along in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, devolving into a remnant low not once, but twice.

Genevieve’s third stint as a tropical cyclone began Aug. 2 -- and it almost sputtered again, barely hanging on to depression status at times before finally reaching a more favorable environment and exploding to Category 4 hurricane status before reaching the International Dateline on Aug. 7.

Upon crossing that line into the Eastern Hemisphere, Genevieve became a typhoon, and was soon deemed a super typhoon with winds of 160 mph by the U.S. military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The Japan Meteorological Agency, the world-recognized agency responsible for forecasting tropical systems in the western Pacific, continued to track the storm until it lost tropical characteristics on Aug. 14.

Genevieve thus became one of the very few tropical cyclones to move across the eastern, central, and western portions of the North Pacific Ocean; despite its long journey, it had little effect on land.

Pacific Storms Impact Southwest U.S.

While tropical cyclones rarely make it intact into the southwestern U.S., they sometimes cause indirect impacts – and 2014 brought plenty of those.

Hurricane Marie bashed the beaches of Southern California with damaging surf in late August, causing $14 million in damage and prompting over 100 ocean rescues in a single day along the coast of Los Angeles County alone.

Hurricanes Norbert and Odile each sent tremendous amounts of rainfall into the Southwest in September. Norbert’s rains set an all-time calendar-day rainfall record at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, and unleashed massive floods that ripped up a section of Interstate 15 near Moapa, Nevada. Odile brought a large area of heavy rain from Arizona through New Mexico and into parts of Texas; parts of southeast New Mexico saw more than 20 inches of rain in September, 10 times the monthly average.

Hurricane Simon brought additional heavy rainfall to parts of the Southwest in early October.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Hurricane Odile, Sept. 2014