Severe Weather Awareness Week: Hurricanes & water & Florida

When it comes to hurricanes, Florida stands out like a sore thumb.

In 2024, three hurricanes landed in Florida: two in the Big Bend and one on the West Coast. Florida's narrow width allows it to feel the impacts over extensive and populous areas, and effects can vary significantly within a short distance. Its flat terrain also enables hurricanes to maintain their structure and strength more effectively than if a cyclone were to cross mountainous terrain.

Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November 30. At the beginning of the season, more disorganized storms often impact the state, mainly coming from the west. This means that Florida is on the messy side of the storm, the most active side. These storms, either forming in June or preseason, can cause significant rain events and tornadoes as the rainbands travel over the region.

Later in the season, storms tend to brew in the Caribbean, and toward the peak of the season, between August and October, there tends to be more activity from African waves. These storms are often monitored for several days, if not weeks, contributing to the public's tropical activity fatigue.

Not all storms make it to Florida or even the United States; many curve northward before coming close to the Americas.

Toward the end of the season, the formation areas retract again, and storms tend to be born "closer to home," usually from a lingering front or low-pressure system. These kinds of storms need to be closely monitored, like the ones at the beginning of the season. They can be named one moment and then make landfall the next day.

Remember that a storm doesn't have to be officially named to impact an area significantly. If an area is already vulnerable and, for example, a disorganized system is moving slowly, this can wreak havoc and cause lots of water damage, flooding, and even deaths.

It is often the misconception that wind is the most dangerous part of a hurricane, but water is the factor that causes the most fatalities. Freshwater flooding, meaning flooding due to rain, has caused 57% of the deaths between 2013 and 2022. Surf and rip currents account for 15%, wind 12%, and storm surge 11%.

Before the recent decade, between 1963 and 2012, storm surges accounted for 49% of the deaths, freshwater flooding took 27%, and wind was 8%. The atmosphere is holding more water vapor with the increased global temperatures; therefore, anything that goes up must come down, often in the form of heavier downpours, in this case, in tropical systems.

Flooding tips:

• If you come to an area covered with water, it can be more profound than expected: Turn Around Don’t Drown®.
• Six inches of fast-moving water can knock adults off their feet and sweep them away.
• Twelve inches of moving water can carry off a small car.
• 18 to 24 inches of moving water can carry away larger vehicles, including
• Get to higher ground if you are in an area subject to flooding.
• Follow evacuation orders and heed warning signs.
• If you have time before you evacuate, disconnect utilities and appliances.
• Avoid floodwaters: It is NEVER safe to drive or walk through them. Live wires, sharp objects, and animals can be in the water. Floodwaters could be contaminated, exposing you to harmful or even deadly bacteria.

While there is a wide range of impacts during the storm's passage, such as lightning, wind damage, tornadoes, flooding, erosion, and high surf -- the latter could last even after its passage— there are also many deaths, indirectly, after a storm passes, often due to carbon monoxide poisoning, and performing unsafe cleanup duties (including electrocution), and car accidents. So be careful when you keep up after a hurricane or tropical storm; there could be latent threats.

Hurricane season preparedness tips:

• Have a plan ready for you and your family.
• Know your evacuation zone or a federal flood zone.
• Have a hurricane kit with all necessary supplies (water, nonperishable foods, batteries, and flashlight).
• Prepare your home by securing loose gutters and cutting down loose branches.
• Retrofit your home to secure and reinforce the roof, windows, and doors, including the garage doors—this could reduce damage.

Know the terminology:

• Hurricane (or tropical storm) watch means hurricane conditions (sustained winds of 74 mph or higher) are possible within the specified area. A hurricane watch is issued 48 hours before an area's anticipated onset of tropical storm-force winds.
• Hurricane (or tropical storm) warnings indicate that hurricane conditions (sustained winds of 74 mph or higher) are expected somewhere within the specified area. Because hurricane-preparedness activities become difficult once winds reach tropical storm force (sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph), the hurricane warning is issued 36 hours before the anticipated onset of tropical storm-force winds.
• Storm surge: The abnormal rise in seawater level during a storm, measured as the height of the water above the normal predicted astronomical tide. The surge is caused primarily by a storm’s winds pushing water onshore.
• Tropical disturbance: An area of organized thunderstorm activity 100 - 300 miles in diameter that maintains its identity for 24 hours or more and is in the lower levels of the atmosphere (surface). If the disturbance acquires a spin and winds at least 30 mph, It is now called a tropical depression. It forms over waters of at least 80F.
• Tropical depression: A cluster of storms trying to organize and produce maximum winds below 39 mph.
• Tropical storm: When the cluster of storms has acquired better organization, there is some circulation near the center, and the winds reach between 39 and 73 mph. At this point, the storm also receives a name. Water temperatures under the system are usually above 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Subtropical storms develop the same way as tropical storms over waters with a temperature of at least 70 degrees. They also tend to have a closed circulation, but their organization differs. Usually, their maximum winds occur far from their center (at more than 60 nautical miles) and are messy, meaning they are not symmetric. Their rains are usually shifted to the side.
• Hurricane: Once a tropical storm strengthens and its maximum sustained winds reach at least 74 mph, it becomes a hurricane. Based on wind speeds, hurricanes are further divided into categories.
  
• Category 1: 74-95 mph
• Category 2: 96-110 mph
• Category 3: 111-129 mph
• Category 4: 130-156 mph
• Category 5: over 157 mph

1. Major hurricane: any hurricane category 3, 4 or 5.

How do storms get named?

A tropical low-pressure system must be at least a tropical storm (or subtropical) to receive an official name. The names come from a list that rotates every six years. They could be Spanish, French, or American. This is done intentionally to serve better this region, which hurricanes impact.

Even-number years start with male names, while uneven years start with female names. However, it wasn’t always like this. Before satellites existed, storms usually received their names depending on the regions they impacted, saints, or holidays. The names were generally given after the event. Storms started getting official names in 1953, but only female names. By 1979, the lists were updated, and alternating male names were added. The six lists of names were officially implemented.

You will no longer see Greek letters if we use all the names on the list in a season. The National Hurricane Center, along with the World Meteorological Organization, which handles the adding and retiring of names, has a supplemental list of names that will kick in any year all names are used. This supplemental list of names will be used every year. If one name is retired from the list due to the storm being catastrophic and costly and meeting the retirement criteria, it would be replaced like any other storm retired from the rotating lists.
Copyright 2025 Storm Center