The numbers are in for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season – one that proved destructive by damages in monetary terms. Rod Bain reports.

PARTICIPANTS: Rod Bain and USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey

Transcript

The 2024 hurricane season left a depression because of the damage primarily from Helene and Milton, our last two hurricanes that hit the US during the season.

It looks like this will become the number two all time for damage in the United States during a single hurricane season topped only by 2017, with USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey noting between five hurricanes that hit the US mainland this year, an estimated $200 billion, with a B, US dollars in damages occurred.

All five hitting the US Gulf Coast, not a single hurricane striking the Atlantic seaboard.

In order.

Barrel, a category one system that hit the middle Texas coast, but created quite a bit of destruction.

About a month later, we had Hurricane Debbie moving into Florida's Big Bend as a category one hurricane.

Francine, a category two hurricane hitting earlier in September, that system moved ashore across southeastern Louisiana.

Then later in September, Hurricane Helene, the deadliest hurricane of the 2024 season, Helene, a category four system when it moved inland in Florida's Big Bend, causing absolute devastation due to heavy rain and flooding in the southern Appalachians.

And then finally, Milton reached the Florida coast just south of Tampa Bay as a category three storm in early October.

For comparison by the numbers, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made its late May forecast for this year's Atlantic hurricane season, the original forecast indicated expectations for an extremely active season, 17 to 25 named storms, eight to 13 hurricanes and four to seven major hurricanes.

And when the season completed at November's end, the totals fell within the range of expectations.

We had 18 named storms in the Atlantic basin.

That is on the lower end of that range of 17 to 25 in the forecast.

But we did have 11 hurricanes right in the middle of that range of eight to 13 for the forecast.

And then five major hurricanes once again within that forecast range of four to seven, the 1991 to 2020 30 year average in the Atlantic basin is for 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

So we exceeded expectations on all three.

I'm Rod Bain reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.