1958 Atlantic hurricane season

Activity shifts from the Gulf to the Atlantic

The Miami Weather Bureau staff counted ten tropical cyclones in 1958, seven of hurricane intensity, matching the 20-year average of ten. Apart from Alma in mid-June the tropics stayed stable until the second week of August. A trough along the Atlantic coast in June and blocking in July kept the westerlies at low latitudes, a pattern the authors considered hostile to storms. From mid-August to early October activity ran high, and most of it moved from the Gulf of Mexico, the focus in 1957, to the western Atlantic.

The site's archive holds 12 tropical storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes, with an accumulated cyclone energy of 109.7. The Delgado and Landsea reanalysis added two storms: a late-May system that tracked northeast from near the Florida Keys and turned extratropical over the western Atlantic, and a short-lived storm in mid-October. Some tallies list five major hurricanes; the reanalyzed record in the archive peaks Ella and Ilsa at 95 kt, just below the 96 kt major threshold, leaving Cleo, Daisy and Helene.

The Weather Bureau attributed only two US deaths directly to tropical cyclones and estimated US damage at 11 to 12 million dollars, mostly from Helene in the Carolinas. In the Antilles the storms killed 6 or 7 people in Cuba, 35 or more in Haiti, 3 in Puerto Rico and 2 in the Bahamas.

Alma, then three storms that curved away

Tropical Storm Alma formed about 150 miles east of Tampico on 14 June and, per the reanalysis, came ashore in northeastern Mexico at 55 kt early on 15 June. Rain of 7 to 10 inches fell on the hill country west of San Antonio, with some totals near 20 inches west of Medina, Texas, and the resulting floods did most of the damage. One person drowned in the Galveston area.

Becky, Cleo and Daisy all recurved over the western Atlantic, turned by a deeper than usual trough along the East Coast. Hurricane Cleo was already intense when an Air Force plane first reached it on 14 August, with 146 mph winds estimated. It reached its lowest pressure, 947 mb by dropsonde, on 15 August, when the archive places its 120 kt peak. It turned north south of 20° N, rare for August, and crossed the transatlantic shipping lanes without reported losses.

Hurricane Daisy formed north of the central Bahamas on 24 August and deepened to 935 mb as it recurved, its pressure falling about 40 mb in 24 hours from the evening of 26 August. It passed about 75 miles east of Hatteras and 70 miles southeast of Nantucket, and warnings went up from Provincetown to Block Island. A Texas Tower 120 miles east of Cape Cod recorded 69 mph winds, but Daisy caused no deaths or significant damage in the United States. The archive gives it a 115 kt peak on 27 August.

A reporter who flew into Daisy became the first woman to fly into a hurricane, and that coastal radars from Texas to Maine let the Weather Bureau follow Daisy and Helene over hundreds of miles.

Ella and Gerda in the northern Caribbean

Hurricane Ella formed east of the Windward Islands on 30 August and strengthened fast in the eastern Caribbean, with aircraft estimating 110 mph early on 1 September as it skirted the south coasts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The reanalysis places a 95 kt landfall on Haiti's southwestern peninsula on 1 September and a 70 kt landfall in eastern Cuba early on 2 September, near the archive's 95 kt peak. After crossing the Sierra Maestra it never regained hurricane force.

Floods on Haiti's southern coast drowned 30 people near Aux Cayes and left thousands without shelter, the Weather Bureau reported, while the Dominican Republic reported $100,000 in flood damage and no deaths. In Cuba, six to eight people drowned. Ella then crossed the Gulf as a tropical storm and reached the Texas coast; Galveston Airport measured 13.60 inches of rain in three and a half days. Other accounts place Ella's 30 deaths in the Dominican Republic instead.

Tropical Storm Gerda crossed the southern Dominican Republic in mid-September and fell apart over the mountains. Three deaths in Puerto Rico, two of them drownings, were attributed to it.

Helene brushes Cape Fear

Hurricane Helene grew from a Cape Verde wave and moved west-northwest for days before a large, warm upper anticyclone shifted from Texas to the Middle Atlantic coast. Helene slowed, turned northwest and deepened fast, from 988 mb on 25 September to 948 mb the next day. The archive places its 130 kt peak, Category 4, and the season's lowest pressure of 930 hPa at 09 UTC on 27 September, east of Charleston.

The western edge of Helene's eye came within about 10 miles of the coast at Cape Fear before the storm recurved northeast. The reanalysis records no landfall, only a 110 kt hurricane impact on North Carolina at closest approach. Wilmington measured a fastest mile of 88 mph and a 135 mph gust, both records, and Cape Fear estimated 125 mph with gusts to 150 to 160 mph.

Because the centre stayed offshore, Helene's surge fell well short of Hazel's in 1954, and the authors wrote that the Carolina coast missed a disaster of the first magnitude. Damage came to $11,000,000 in North Carolina and $200,000 on the upper South Carolina coast, in 1958 dollars. No one died as a direct result and one person died indirectly; the Weather Bureau credited warnings, radar tracking and full evacuation of the beaches.

Ilsa and Janice close the season

Hurricane Ilsa, about 1,100 miles from Helene, deepened 48 mb in about 24 hours to 932 mb on 26 September, and the pair showed a slight counterclockwise rotation around each other. Ilsa stayed at sea. Hurricane Janice formed south of Cuba, crossed the island on the night of 5 October and became a hurricane over the central Bahamas the next evening. One man died in Nassau harbor. Its precursor dropped more than 20 inches of rain on Jamaica, and the floods destroyed homes and crops.

A reversal of the hemispheric pattern in mid-October sent polar air as far south as Florida. The archive's last tropical-stage record falls on 17 October.