Unusual hurricane season produces more storms than expected

Property Casualty 360: Forecasters at Colorado State University are declaring this year’s Atlantic basin hurricane season to be an unusual one that had more activity than expected, but with virtually all of that activity coming in the form of weaker storms.

In a report issued today by the hurricane forecast team led by Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, the 2012 hurricane season, which officially ends tomorrow, “was one of the most unusual seasons on record with a significant number of weaker cyclones combined with a general lack of major hurricane activity….”

In August, the team issued an updated forecast calling for average activity: 14 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes. The season produced 19 named storms, 10 hurricanes and only one major hurricane.

The team notes that no major hurricanes made landfall in the United States this past season. A major hurricane is defined as a Category 3, 4, or 5 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of 111 mph and higher.

Despite its size, with a wind radius of close to 500 miles, Superstorm Sandy never reached major hurricane status. However, when it made landfall as a post-tropical storm it generated the lowest pressure ever recorded in the Northeast U.S. at 943 millibars, breaking the record set by the Great New England Hurricane or Long Island Express of 1938, the Colorado team says....

Hurricane Sandy in Marblehead, shot by The Brikes, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license