An active 2019 hurricane season comes to a close Saturday. It was a season in which we saw 18 named storms. But State Climatologist Barry Keim says most of those storms never reached hurricane strength.
“The six hurricanes and three major hurricanes actually come into that long-term average, so from that regard, it was an average season,” said Keim.
The signature storm for Louisiana was Barry. A rare hurricane in July that made landfall in Louisiana, but spared the Bayou State from the massive flooding that was predicted. However, Keim says in September, Hurricane Dorian broke records with its 185-mile per hour winds.
“It just annihilated the Bahamas, and this ties the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 as the strongest landfalling hurricane, it also was the second strongest ever in the Atlantic Basin, second to only to Hurricane Allen in 1980.”
Another major event was Imelda, a slow-moving tropical storm that dumped over 40 inches of rain near Beaumont, Texas. Keim says even though Louisiana was hit by a hurricane this season, it was relatively a good year for us.
“Certainly wasn’t anything significance and if the worst hurricanes we get are Barry than I think we are doing pretty good,” said Keim.
