1961 Atlantic hurricane season

An empty summer, then a crowded autumn

Gordon Dunn and his Miami staff wrote in Monthly Weather Review that the number of storms matched the average of the previous three decades, but that 1961 stood out for two things: almost no activity from June through August and very high frequency from September through November. They counted eight hurricanes, a total reached in only eight earlier years since 1900. The site's archive gives an accumulated cyclone energy of 188.9. By the best-track measure, no season since 1950 had produced more energy, and none did again until 1995.

The site counts 12 tropical storms. Dunn's summary covered ten cyclones that received advisories; the current best track adds an unnamed tropical storm in mid-September and a storm from 17 to 21 November that reanalysts added as new. The current best track also lowered several peaks. Carla fell from 150 kt to 125 kt, and the reanalysis project cut the count of major hurricanes from seven to five in 2019, the number the site uses.

A shift in the large-scale flow set up the September burst. A strong ridge over western North America gave way to a deep trough, a ridge built over eastern North America and the height pattern over the Atlantic matched one Ballenzweig had found favorable for development in the east. Four hurricanes formed there in the first half of the month.

Anna, and the first satellite-tracked season

Hurricane Anna formed east of the Windward Islands on 19 July and ran almost due west through the Caribbean at a low latitude, reaching its lowest pressure of 976 mb on 22 July. It skirted the northeastern coast of Honduras and moved inland over southern British Honduras on 24 July. Dunn reported several hundred houses damaged or destroyed on the northern Honduran coast and one death at Trujillo and the Bay Islands.

The TIROS III satellite photographed Anna's cloud mass near 12°N, 43°W on 17 July, two days before forecasters began its track. Through September it placed Debbie's center when no aircraft could reach it and showed Esther on 10 September, two days before reconnaissance confirmed it. Dunn concluded that the satellite was already an excellent detection tool that could fix a center to within about 2 degrees.

Four hurricanes in September

Hurricane Betsy formed on 2 September in the eastern tropical Atlantic, deepened to 945 mb on 6 September and stayed at sea. Carla took shape in the western Caribbean on 3 September, Debbie formed near the Cape Verde Islands and Esther followed on 10 September. Dunn's surface chart for 11 September showed four hurricanes at full strength at once, which he called the first known case. Under the current best track only three were hurricanes that day, since Esther had not yet reached hurricane strength in the reanalysis.

Debbie curved north through the Azores and passed along the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland on 16 September, when Ballykelly logged a 106 mph gust. A plane crash in the Cape Verde Islands during the storm's early stage killed 60 people, and 18 died in Ireland, 12 in the Republic and 6 in Northern Ireland.

Hurricane Carla and the largest evacuation yet

Carla intensified slowly and steadily across the Gulf of Mexico and came ashore in the Port O'Connor to Port Lavaca area on the afternoon of 11 September. The reanalysis gives a landfall wind of 125 kt, Category 4, with a central pressure of 931 mb; that is also its peak in the archive. The storm moved at only 6 to 9 mph, so hurricane conditions lasted unusually long. Tides reached 16.6 feet above mean sea level at Port Lavaca, and Dunn cited an estimated 175 mph peak gust there.

Dunn reported Texas damage near $300 million, about two-thirds to property and one-third to crops. He listed 34 deaths in Texas, 8 of them in a tornado that crossed Galveston, plus 6 in Louisiana, 5 in Kansas and 1 in Missouri. About 350,000 people fled the Texas and Louisiana coasts, the largest evacuation in the nation's history at that time, which Dunn credited for the low toll. Carla's total damage came to $325.74 million in 1961 dollars, and the name was retired.

Esther's loop off New England

Esther deepened as a high passed to its north and dropped to 927 mb by 17 September in Dunn's account; the archive records a 140 kt peak that day and a lowest pressure of 919 hPa. Esther passed about 120 miles east of Cape Hatteras and within 35 miles of Block Island, where Montauk Point gusted to 94 kt. It then weakened over cooler water, turned east and completed a large clockwise loop before crossing Cape Cod and Maine as a tropical storm on 26 September.

Weather Bureau, Navy and Air Force aircraft seeded Esther with silver iodide on 16 and 17 September. Radar showed supercooled water turning to ice, but Dunn found no change in the storm's track or intensity. He attributed no deaths to Esther and estimated property damage at $5 million to $10 million. Seven people died indirectly in a Navy P5M crash north of Bermuda.

Hattie and the late-season storms

Frances crossed the Leeward Islands as a weak storm on 1 October, peaked at 115 kt west of Bermuda and died over Nova Scotia; flooding on the south coast of Puerto Rico caused its main damage. Tropical Storm Gerda crossed Jamaica and Cuba in mid-October. Dunn cited press reports of seven deaths in eastern Cuba and five drownings in Jamaica.

Hattie formed south of San Andrés Island on 27 October and headed north. A ridge building over the Gulf of Mexico turned it west-southwest on 29 October, and warnings for western Cuba proved unnecessary. The archive places its 145 kt peak and 914 hPa minimum at 00 UTC on 31 October. The reanalysis puts landfall near Belize at 12 UTC that day at 130 kt, Category 4.

Storm tides of 10 to 11 feet swept the Belize waterfront, and Dunn reported that three-quarters of the city was destroyed or badly damaged. He gave a toll of 262 deaths in British Honduras at the time of writing, 11 in Guatemala and 1 in Honduras, with damage near $60 million in 1961 dollars. A later count gives 307 deaths in the territory and 319 overall. Plans to move the capital inland led to Belmopan, and the name Hattie was retired with Carla.

Dunn described Tropical Storm Inga as the first storm on record to form in the Gulf of Mexico in November, and Hurricane Jenny as a quasi-tropical system that grew beneath a cold upper low. Neither struck land.