2023 Hurricane Season Ends.......... Meteorological Winter Begins. 2023 Busy Year Few Landfalls.

Nothing for  7 days.

Hurricane Season officially ends tomorrow.

In truth it's been over for a while now.

Current radar above.

I really dislike this radar.

It's horrible compared to others.

But most use it as they can zoom in well.

Many good sites people pay for and I do.

But this is basically the view of our world today.

Winter weather in the West.

Southern Jet active as seen in the South.

Gulf of Mexico region.

It all moves East over the coming days.

We are a day away from Winter.

Meteorological Winter.

 December 1st.

I'll talk on Winter Forecasts later.

Today I'm briefly talking on 2023 Hurricane Season.

Yes very busy season.  

20 named storms.

Can you remember them all?

List below.

Names above.

Remember also the unamed storm in January 

Note while everyone talks on how busy it was....

....it was for the most part not very memorable.

Idalia was memorable.

One of the few really strong hurricanes.

A Major Hurricane that made landfall.

Most danced out in the Atlantic.

NC had it's usual brush with tropical weather.

But thankfully nothing Major.

The Islands did get brushes with weak systems.

When I look back at 2023 I remember staying up late with my friend who has a house in Chiefland who was riding out Idalia alone on the phone with me.... and listening to the wind in the pines as she kept sending me videos. Lots of tree damage, minor mostly as some oak branches fell as they will do in a strong wind but she was okay. Most people were okay. Heavy damage in Tallahassee far to the left of the eye as it began to transition as it was making landfall, though not officially until a bit later. Cities up in Georgia far to the North of where it was making landfall on the coast of Florida were getting slammed with violent weather faster than most expected. I've spoken to people who live there (many Miami kids leave Miami moving on up to Georgia and the Carolinas) and most were not expecting much but a little wind as it passed by on it's way further to the East. Of course, the storm surge to the South of landfall in Cedar Key a beautiful place us native Floridians love that hovers over the water in many places known for a great place to keep your boat, plane or catch incredible sunsets. Old Florida, Old South...beautiful spot in that part of Florida.

Let's be real here.

Barrier islands....Keys out in the Gulf

Get Storm Surge.

For storm chasers this was a season in hell. For people living along the Hurricane Coasts and inland it was an easy hurricane season. Yes, there were many named storms, mostly weak named storms that traced the previous storm's track incessantly in a never ending parade of struggling tropical systems making the turn away from the Caribbean and often in the wide open Atlantic intensifying and seemingly sitting for days as if they never would move North and when they did more North it was towards New England and Canada. Actually Canada was this seasons Carolinas having mutliple threats and impacts. And, we can thank El Nino because the Caribbean was totally free of hurricanes South of Yucatan as seen below. 

Let's put it this way. This is like a woman looking back at her teenage years, college days before settling down, who was very popular always out on a date every weekend. Trust me it happens. And and old best friend says to her at reunion, "wow you dated so many cute guys" and she nods and yet she really only remembers one or two with a smile two names fondly; adding in "oh that's right John and Elliot also ...they were nice guys" and smiles. Her friend nods and giggles. She begins to realize she can't really remember every boy she dated, though she remembers the pizza shops (so many pizza shops) and the movies they saw and yet mostly she remembers the ones she remembers. They were all nice to be honest including a few she didn't date but flirted with all day at school. And, this hurricane season will be like that as well. Idalia will be remembered. They were all named systems, they all had their moments where they showed potential and grabbed our attention but most will not be remembered. Especially this year as many systems followed the same patterns and thankfully for most of us it was a quiet year compared to recent years when Florida or Louisiana were pummeled by multiple landfalling hurricanes. 

Nice. Name them all. 

If so you are a hurricane expert.

The average person won't.

Idalia FL

Ophelia NC

We had the beautiful spinners.

Idalia and Ophelia.

The truth is it's hard for multiple tropical depressions to try and gain traction when there's some or Franklin spinning as if it's anchored and then Idalia takes it's place. Lord the NHC thought Idalia would never leave. 

But one thing this season shows is it doesn't matter how many storms are named, it only takes one to cause destruction to your own area. And, it only takes one in a very slow season.

Florida got lucky for the most part. Though there was severe damage and flooding in South Florida from the No Name Storm that maybe the NHC will upgrade........or not.........when re-evaluating the season's sysetms. Time will tell. 

Winter begins in the morning, hours from now and we are already well into Winter as we had a Hard Freeze last night in Raleigh. 

As always I appreciate everyone that reads this and interacts with me on X once known as Twitter. I appreciate your patience or amusement when I go on a rant. And, I appreciate your patience when I disapeer for personal reasons or worldly matters that seem more important than fair weather days with no tropical systems on the map. I'll be here covering winter weather, that I do so love and it's actually harder to forecast in ways than hurricanes as snow storms form in real time often less than 36 hours before the snow begins to fall. The Southern Jet is setting up, we begin to watch Miller A and Miller B and Miller C storms but we can talk about all the Miller Storms and explain that down the road.

My bottom line.........

Every hurricane season is different. Will next year be busy or slow? People who do long range forecasting predict a busy season. But if it's busy where they make landfall and if it's slow .... will be have another Andrew in August? Well, it wouldn't be Andrew as that's been retired.

I leave you with the 2024 Hurricane Season names. It'll be a while before we have any named storms, and let's hope 2024 is a peaceful, calm, healthy, happy year with only the weather you love the most!

Sweet Snowy Dreams in my case.

BobbiStorm

Lived in LA in the 80s.

Memorable movies :)