There has never been a hurricane season like the 2020, as of now in late October we are one named storm shy of the all time record from 2005 of number of named storms in a single season.
It seems almost certain that we will break this record as there already seems to be another one brewing in the Caribbean (this doesn't pose a threat to the Gulf Coast or the United States).
While that would be the last record to fall, this season has already shattered every other record imaginable both on a national level, the highest storms to hit the United States (currently 11), and a local level with the number of storms to hit Louisiana.
Louisiana's previous record was set back in 2002 with 4 named storms, Hurricane Zeta just became the 5th putting 2020 in the official record books.
That itself is impressive, but it's really just scratching the surface, while 2002 was a busy year for Louisianans three of the four storms were tropical storms (the other one of course was Hurricane Lilli). Compare that to 2020 where three of the storms all arrived as at least a Category 2 hurricane.
Those are just the systems that made landfall, now add Tropical Storm Beta and Hurricane Sally, both of which caused impacts here in Louisiana and at one point in time had us in the cone; setting off all the anxiety that comes with life in the cone of uncertainty.
Out of all of the hurricanes that have made landfall in the United States Louisiana has felt the effects from over half of them, about 64% of storms impacting the country have directly impacted Louisiana.
At least once this year every single parish in the state has been under some kind of tropical warning, whether that's a tropical storm warning or hurricane warning.
This above map is, honestly, nauseating to look at especially when you think that most of these have arrived in a time span of about two months. That's right, in roughly sixty days Louisiana has faced six (I'm leaving out Cristobal) storms that most places would see maybe once a year.
Once again though this just includes storms that have impacted Louisiana, but if we change the criteria to Gulf of Mexico storms (once again any storm in the Gulf of Mexico sets off a certain amount of anxiety until you know where it's going) the total increases to 8 storms.
If you recall Hurricane Hanna was the second storm in the Gulf of Mexico, it made landfall in south Texas.
It's been an onslaught for us here in Louisiana, and you certainly don't need me to justify these feelings, but if you feel like it hasn't been normal I'm here to tell you there's a reason you feel that way.
It's been exhausting, and not just for meteorologists, everyone is tired from these things and you can feel the fatigue setting in (I'm certainly guilty of this myself).
We do have to remain on alert though, we've got one more month of the season and since we only have one comparable season to the one we're experiencing now it's worth pointing out that the last storm of 2005 didn't develop until December 30.
That storm by the way was Tropical Storm Zeta.
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