MyFoxHurricane.com blog

Past Octobers not quite so quiet

Posted by Andy Johnson under Daily updates

This has been a weaker than normal hurricane season. Even though the peak of hurricane season occurs in August and September, west central Florida can experience late and early season tropical systems. This is because of our unique geographical position on the west coast of the peninsula. In order to get a direct strike by a major hurricane, the most probable path would be for a system to develop in the western Caribbean, then move through the Yucatan Channel missing both Cuba and the Yucatan and then recurving to the northeast. This indeed was what happened on October 25, 1921 shown in the Figure below. Since landfall was in Tarpon Springs a high storm surge of 10.5′ above sea level was forced into Tampa Bay. Remember that Davis Islands, Harbor Island, Culbreath Isles and Beach Park Isles did not exist in their present form in 1921. Those subdivisions were just marshy areas mostly covered by water at high tide. A 10.5 storm surge would inundate all of the those areas today.

We are headed into the last month of the official hurricane season which ends on November 30. In many years, no named hurricanes are recorded in November. The latest date that a hurricane hit the United States was November 30, 1925. Ironically, it struck near Bradenton, FL.