- The United States has 11 specific storms that made landfall this season, but none have occurred in Florida.
- Sally made landfall in Alabama, but caused storms, flash floods and high winds in the Panhandle.
- ETA may be the first Florida official to have been named storm surgeons.
The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season set a record for named storm avalanches in the United States, and although none technically occurred in Florida, ETA’s forecast could change that.
Last week, Hurricane Zeta became the eleventh storm to make landfall on the mainland United States in 2020. This is twice the previous record for most land fall in the United States in a season set in 1916.
Incredibly, none of those crashes happened in Florida.
However, there is an asterisk for that.
Hurricane Sally The Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama were hit in mid-September with up to 30 inches of rain, 121 mph wind gusts and gust floods.
Technically speaking, the fall of Sally – the site where the epicenter of a tropical storm or hurricane crosses the Earth – occurred across the border near Gulf Coast, Alabama.
It also moved through South Florida as the 19th Tropical Depression. It didn’t become Sally until she moved offshore south of Naples, Florida.
ETA is expected to approach the southern Florida peninsula by the end of this week. There is a possibility that the ETA center will move straight to the Florida peninsula and become the state’s first official named Storm Blow this season.
Even if ETA heads west toward the Gulf of Mexico before a landing in Florida, there’s a chance it will happen on the Florida Gulf Coast next week.
Alternatively, ETA can bring rain, wind and high waves to parts of Florida, but it does not officially make landfall in the state.
Florida has only had two more brushes this season of storms that later cause the fall of America’s lands elsewhere.
Tropical storm warnings in the Lower and Central regions were subsequently dropped as Tropical Storm Laura was tracking in or southwestern Cuba in late August.
While Florida’s Atlantic coast was subject to hurricane warnings of Isaias in early August, it rained only some moderate winds and rain while its center remained safe offshore.
The Upper Keys of Florida and the west coast of Florida, east of Appalachia, are the only parts of the eastern or Gulf coasts that have not yet been placed under a tropical storm or hurricane warning so far this season.
Even parts of western Maine have been hit by a tropical storm warning this season ahead of Florida’s west coast.
The path of landfall in the name of storms in the United States in 2020. The path through southern Florida was the 19th Tropical Depression, which eventually became Sally in the Gulf of Mexico.
Final seasons: all or none
In recent years, Florida has experienced frenzied hurricane seasons, but also some prolonged dry hurricane periods.
Hurricane Irma in 2017 cut the Florida peninsula from the Keys further north. This was followed one year later by the devastation wrought by Category 5 Hurricane Michael in the Panhandle.
In 2004, Florida was struck by four hurricanes – Charlie, Francis, Evan and Jane – three of which passed Polk County in Central Florida.
Effects of the four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004.
(Track data: NHC)
Three more Hurricanes – Dennis, Katrina, and Wilma – arrived in Florida in 2005. Another Rita hit the Florida Keys.
But after Wilma, it was nearly 11 years before the next hurricane – Hermine – reached Florida, Record hurricane drying for the Sunshine State.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report breaking weather news, the environment, and the importance of science in our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of the parent company, IBM.
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