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A review of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season

Posted at 2:02 PM, May 22, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-22 15:02:40-04

Last year’s hurricane season was the costliest for the United States as 6 storms, including 3 major hurricanes, directly hit the country causing more than 280 billion dollars in damage.

In total 17 named storms formed in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico in 2017 with 10 straight storms becoming hurricanes.

The most impressive number from last year was the fact that 6 storms reached major hurricane strength, which is a category 3 storm or stronger. 

Here in Acadiana we were relatively lucky compared to the rest of the Gulf Coast as we only saw minimal impacts from Tropical Storm Cindy and Hurricane Harvey which both hit Cameron parish.

The season really picked up in late August when Hurricane Harvey rapidly formed in the Gulf and hit Corpus Christi as a category 4 storm with winds of 130 mph leveling much of the beach front.

Besides the destruction in Corpus Christi Hurricane Harvey will be remembered for the record rainfall it produced in Houston causing widespread flooding.

A couple weeks after Harvey Hurricane Irma slammed into the Florida Keys as a category 4 hurricane devastating many of the islands and caused widespread wind damage and storm surge up the Florida peninsula.

And no one will forget Hurricane Maria which caused catastrophic damage to the island of Puerto Rico.

The country is still trying to recover with thousands still without power 8 months after the storm.

After Maria Hurricane Nate developed as a sloppy and fast moving hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that crashed into Biloxi with a wall of water.

Jaime Rhome a storm surge specialist says "(Nate) actually produced a 9 foot storm surge which was on par and similar to storm surge we had in Maria and Irma.

In total the storms claimed the lives of more than 400 people throughout the Caribbean Islands, Central America and the United States.

For a more complete review of the 2017 hurricane season you can check out this article I wrote detailing each and every storm.

http://www.katc.com/story/36968270/a-look-back-at-the-2017-atlantic-hurricane-season