Recapping 2018 Hurricane Season

The 2018 Hurricane season officially comes to an end this Friday. After breaking many records during the 2017 season, 2018 added a few more records to the list.

After a fairly quiet start to the 2018 hurricane season, once August rolled around things quickly transitioned into round the clock forecasting as multiple cyclones formed. By September, major Hurricane Florence began to take aim at the east coast, the storm threatening to be one of the strongest hurricanes to ever strike the United States. The cyclones winds decreased before landfall on September 14^th, but the flooding rain and storm surge would prove to be deadly and devastating for the Carolinas, causing 53 deaths and over 100 billion dollars in damage.

Also in September, Tropical Storm Gordon formed and raced toward the Gulf Coast with South Mississippi in its crosshairs. By the night of September 4^th, the storm was closing in on South Mississippi, but as Gordon made landfall near the state line in Jackson County, much of the area was on the drier side. Many in South Mississippi breathed a sigh of relief, but one death was reported in Florida.

October came and all attention turned to Michael. Initially, it appeared the storm might make a run for South Mississippi, but it passed off to the east. For those near the Panama City Beach area they would experience the Florida Panhandle’s first category 4 storm and now the third lowest pressure recorded from a land-falling hurricane in the U.S., a title previously held by Hurricane Katrina. The storm claimed 43 lives and caused an estimated $25 billion in damage.

For most of South Mississippi, our infrastructure fared pretty well, including the piers which were heavily damaged last year during Hurricane Nate.

This year wasn’t quite as active as last year. Usually we see about 12 named storms a year. This year, we saw 15, eight were hurricanes and two were major hurricanes. Overall, it was a bit more active this year than average.