1963 Atlantic hurricane season

An East Coast trough, then an open door

Gordon Dunn and his Miami staff counted nine tropical cyclones in 1963, seven of hurricane strength, close to the 30-year average of ten. They noted that a storm of 30 May to 4 June in the southwestern Caribbean was probably tropical for part of its life and might have been listed. The reanalysis later added it as a new tropical storm for 2 to 4 June, which is why the site counts 10 tropical storms. Accumulated cyclone energy in the site's archive calculation came to 112.1.

For two years a persistent trough along the East Coast had turned every Atlantic storm away before it reached the United States, and 1963 began the same way. In August the trough weakened over southern latitudes and easterly flow strengthened across the tropics. By September a strong ridge near 40°N, 40°W drove unusually strong easterlies south of 40°N, and Dunn's staff found a tropical cyclone on the surface charts on all but two days from 10 September to 30 October.

Dunn wrote that no major hurricane crossed the continental United States coast for the second year running, yet by loss of life 1963 was the second most disastrous Atlantic hurricane season on record, one that Cuba and Haiti would long remember.

Arlene over Bermuda and Beulah at sea

TIROS VI photographed Arlene's cloud mass in the mid-Atlantic on 31 July. The hurricane decayed to a depression on 4 August, then revived and crossed Bermuda on 9 August. The reanalysis puts that landfall at 95 kt and 975 mb, just below the 100 kt peak in the archive. Bermuda reported gusts to 98 mph, no deaths and $300,000 in property damage. An Air Force balloon released in the eye reached a record 108,760 feet.

Beulah formed near 14°N, 51°W on 20 August, reached its lowest pressure of 958 mb on 24 August and recurved east of Newfoundland without harming anyone. Project Stormfury seeded it on 23 and 24 August.

Cindy's rain and Edith in the Windwards

Cindy formed about 200 miles east-northeast of Brownsville on 16 September and moved ashore near High Island, Texas, the next day. The Weather Bureau treated it as a hurricane, but the reanalysis puts landfall at 55 kt and keeps it a tropical storm. The center stalled inland, and Deweyville recorded 20.60 inches in 24 hours. Water entered about 4,000 homes in Jefferson, Orange and Newton counties. Dunn put property damage, mainly from flooding, at $11.7 million, and reported three drownings: a man off Cameron, Louisiana, and two small sisters in Port Acres floodwater.

Hurricane Edith crossed northern St. Lucia before dawn on 25 September near its peak, then weakened over the mountains and faded north of Hispaniola. Martinique took the worst blow, with $40 million in damage, 10 deaths and 50 injuries. Dunn listed $3,465,000 in damage on St. Lucia, including a total loss of the cocoa crop, and $2,611,600 on Dominica.

Hurricane Flora's stall over Haiti and Cuba

Reconnaissance reached Flora on 30 September and found the most concentrated storm of the past two years. The eye crossed Tobago that afternoon; the reanalysis gives 90 kt there, and Dunn reported 17 deaths and about $30 million in damage on the island, with six more drownings on Grenada. Flora deepened fast on 3 October to 936 mb by aircraft, and the archive's lowest pressure is 933 hPa. The reanalysis puts its landfall on Haiti's southwestern peninsula at 130 kt, Category 4, early on 4 October.

Rising pressure over the eastern United States and a warm anticyclone over the Gulf of Mexico then blocked Flora. It entered Cuba east of Guantánamo Bay on 4 October and looped over the island, and Dunn wrote that eastern Cuba had 70 to 100 mph winds for 100 hours or more. A rain gauge at Miragoâne in Haiti caught at least 57 inches in three days, and Cuban broadcasts cited 90 inches near Velasco. The storm crossed Mayaguana in the Bahamas on 9 October at 85 kt.

About 3,500 bodies were counted in Haiti with several thousand missing, and Dunn judged 5,000 deaths a reasonable estimate there, with damage of $125 million or more. In Cuba the official toll stood at 1,159 dead and over 1,000 missing, which he estimated at no fewer than 1,750 deaths, with damage near $300 million. The Dominican Republic reported 29 known deaths, an estimated toll above 400 and about $60 million in flood damage. Jamaica, on the fringe, lost 11 people and about $11.9 million. Dunn gave Flora's total at the time as 7,186 deaths, the second highest for an Atlantic cyclone, and later counts give at least 7,193.

Ginny's long wander and a weak Helena

Ginny began on 16 October as a cold-core low in the southeastern Bahamas and did not show hurricane structure until 22 October. For eight straight days it meandered within 250 nautical miles of the United States coast, once passing within 50 miles of Cape Canaveral. Oak Island, North Carolina, recorded the highest land wind, 70 mph with gusts to 100 mph. Ginny peaked at 95 kt and reached Nova Scotia on 29 October at 90 kt and 948 mb, the reanalysis finds.

Cold air on Ginny's west side dropped 6 to 18 inches of snow in northern and central Maine, and two people died in the snowstorm with one other death reported; four more may have been lost aboard the tug Otho. Dunn put United States damage at no more than $400,000. Tropical Storm Helena, the last system, stalled near Guadeloupe in late October, where five people died, 500 lost their homes and damage reached about $500,000.