By Paul Homewood
Now that the Atlantic hurricane season has officially finished, it’s time to round up the data.
Despite a lot of media hype, the season has actually been pretty ordinary:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html
http://www.policlimate.com/tropical/
http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/products/tc_realtime/
There were eight Atlantic hurricanes, of which only two were major, Florence and Michael. As both of these hit the US, there was inevitably more media coverage.
ACE was also at unremarkable levels, given the current warm phase of the AMO, when hurricanes tend to be stronger.
Globally, data for the 12 months up to the end of September shows 48 hurricanes, including 27 major.
http://www.policlimate.com/tropical/
ACE data is up to the end of October:
http://www.policlimate.com/tropical/
Neither metric shows anything out of the ordinary this year. Both indicate that hurricane activity peaked in the 1990s, and that over the last decade it has been at similar levels to the 1970s and 80s.
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