The hurricane season is now in the books, and the last six months have been filled with tropical traffic jams and plenty of close calls.
By sheer numbers, the 2023 hurricane season was one for the record books. But that only tells part of the story - a whopping 20 tropical storms and hurricanes developed in the Atlantic basin this year. That's well above average, making 2023 one of the busiest seasons on record.
Climate experts blame unusually warm water temperatures for helping fuel storms. But despite the high number of storms overall, the number of hurricanes and major hurricanes came in right on target.
We had seven hurricanes and three of those reached Category 3 or stronger - exactly the 30-year average. That means the season was dominated by weaker tropical storms.
Researchers measure the energy from tropical systems with the ACE Index, which stands for "accumulated cyclone energy." With an ACE Index of nearly 150, this was a very active season.
Watch the video below for a look at every storm track in 2023. You'll notice just how few of those storms made it close to the U.S. mainland.
Most of the storms churned harmlessly in the open Atlantic - what we call "fish storms."
But there were exceptions: the only hurricane to hit the U.S. this season was Idalia in August, but it was a whopper, setting records for how fast it intensified in the Gulf of Mexico.
News
Virginia Beach, Norfolk residents see heavy flooding from Idalia
The storm eventually made landfall on the west coast of Florida and weakened quickly. Idalia then brought heavy rain to parts of eastern North Carolina.
Positively Hampton Roads
Va. Task Force 2 returns from Florida after assisting in Idalia response effort
A month later, Tropical Storm Ophelia affected those same areas in North Carolina. It too brought heavy rain, a big storm surge and even spawned tornado warnings.
Weather
Ophelia's rain & wind move through North Carolina, Virginia
But overall, storms like those were rare, meaning the number of lives lost and the price tag from the damage this hurricane season were both lower than normal.
While the hurricane season officially ended on November 30, occasionally, we do sometimes see tropical storms and hurricanes develop before and after the season.
