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No major hurricane landfall in U.S. in 9 years; just luck?
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The United States hasn’t experienced the landfall of a Category 3 or larger hurricane in nine years – a string of years that’s likely to come along only once every 177 years, according to a new NASA study.
The current nine-year “drought” is the longest period of time that has passed without a major hurricane making landfall in the U.S. since reliable records began in 1850, said Timothy Hall, a research scientist who studies hurricanes at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York.
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Hall and colleague Kelly Hereid, who works for ACE Tempest Re, a reinsurance firm based in Connecticut, ran a statistical hurricane model based on a record of Atlantic tropical cyclones from 1950 to 2012 and sea surface temperature data.
While hurricane records stretch back to 1850, the data becomes less complete prior to 1950, Hall said.
The study was published recently in Geophysical Research Letters.
Hall and Hereid’s statistical analysis found that in any given year there is a 39 percent probability of one or more major hurricane landfalls on the U.S and that that probability does not depend on the drought length.
So what are the chances of this historic period coming to an end in 2015, based solely on the odds of the historical record?
Thirty-nine percent, Hall said.
