News - Blogs - Active 2012 Hurricane Season comes to an end

Active 2012 Hurricane Season comes to an end
Published: 11/30/2012 10:36 AM
Last Modified: 11/30/2012 11:11 AM

Students measure wind speed in New Orleans as Hurricane Isaac blows ashore in August. Via Associated Press

Today marks the end of a wet and wild hurricane season in the Atlantic region, one that produced a well-above average number of storms and had significant impacts on land but kept a surprising streak going.

There were 19 named storms in the Atlantic this year. Of those 19, 10 became hurricanes and one was Category 3 or higher.

Several storms had impacts on land, the most devastating of which this year was Sandy. The storm was post-tropical when it made landfall but by combining with other storm systems, but its destructive impacts were still felt over a large swath of the country.

Below is an incredible video from the NOAA Visualizations Laboratory that is a compilation of satellite data between June 1 and the end of November. All the storms in the season in 4.5 minutes.

You may have noticed that the first storm you see is Chris. What about A and B? Also, what was that surprising streak I mentioned earlier? Hurricane Season 2012 Fun Facts below:

Storms Alberto and Beryl formed before the official start of hurricane season, a rare occurrence to have two named storms form in May.

The only major hurricane, Michael, reached Category 3, but only spun out in the Atlantic and brought no impacts to the U.S. mainland.

This year marks the seventh consecutive year where a major hurricane (Category 3 or above) has not impacted the U.S. mainland. Sandy had widespread and damaging impacts, and seemed major to me, but it only reached Category 1. (Well, at least to me that’s surprising, especially considering the level of activity in the next Fun Fact…)

Since 1995, more than 70 percent of the hurricane seasons have been above normal, including 2012. But, there have been 10 years in the past 30 that have had higher activity than 2012.

Accuweather.com has even more Fun Facts here. And in graphic form!

If we look back to the NWS Hurricane Center’s prediction for this season, you’ll see they were a bit off. They predicted a “near-normal” hurricane season, with nine to 15 named storms. Four to eight were predicted to become hurricanes and one to three was expected to be a major hurricane. It’s not miles off, but forecasters point to an elusive El Nino that was predicted, but didn’t materialize. El Nino would typically hinder hurricane development in the Atlantic.

One of the storms that made landfall, Isaac, was kind enough to make its way up Louisiana and into Arkansas, bringing that state and us some much-needed rain. Arkansas definitely got the most benefit out of it, the start of the drought-busting in that state. We got some rain from it over here, but a drop in the bucket with our drought.

--Jerry Wofford

Don't forget to send in your snowfall total guesses for our winter. Find out about the contest here, and send me your guesses at jerry.wofford@tulsaworld.com. An important addendum to the contest: Also send in the date Tulsa will receive the first measurable snow. That will be used as a tiebreaker. We have about 30 people so far, so your odds are still pretty good!

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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