1964 Atlantic hurricane season

The end of Florida's long lull

Gordon Dunn and his Miami staff counted twelve tropical cyclones and six hurricanes, the most storms since 1955. The site counts 13 tropical storms and 7 hurricanes because the reanalysis added a new tropical storm in late July and raised the unnamed storm of 28 July to 3 August from 45 kt to 75 kt on ship reports. Accumulated cyclone energy in the site's archive calculation came to 153.

Four hurricane centers reached the United States mainland, the most since five in 1933. None of them came ashore as a major hurricane, yet Dunn's staff noted that the country took about $500 million in hurricane damage anyway. Florida saw three hurricanes, ending a stretch from 1951 through 1963 in which the state had three hurricanes against a normal expectation of 11.7.

The pattern favored the Southeast. Through the peak months the long-wave trough rarely stayed along the East Coast, and when it did it was weak, a sharp contrast with 1962 and 1963. In September the subtropical high was stronger than normal and displaced slightly north, and storms struggled to break into the westerlies.

Weak storms from June to early August

A depression formed east of British Honduras on 2 June, crossed northern Florida on 6 June and became a tropical storm off Georgia and South Carolina the next day. Thunderstorms and hail caused more than $300,000 in damage around Jacksonville. Tropical Storm Abby formed 30 miles southeast of Freeport, Texas, on 7 August and moved ashore near Matagorda that afternoon with light damage. Tropical Storm Brenda crossed Bermuda the next day, where a small tornado or waterspout damaged a commercial airliner.

Hurricane Cleo from Guadeloupe to Miami

Cleo formed near 13°N, 44°W on 20 August and crossed Marie Galante and Basse-Terre on 22 August at 110 kt, the reanalysis finds. Dunn listed 14 deaths and the loss of 1,000 homes in the French West Indies. A Navy reconnaissance plane was badly damaged in the eyewall on 23 August, and the archive places Cleo's 130 kt peak that day. Cleo swung onto Haiti's southwestern peninsula near Les Cayes on 24 August; the reanalysis gives 130 kt at that landfall, and Dunn reported 192 deaths in Haiti and 7 in the Dominican Republic.

Cleo weakened crossing Cuba, where Dunn reported one death, then strengthened fast over the warm shallows off Florida. The edge of the eye reached Key Biscayne at 0200 EST on 27 August, the first full hurricane strike on greater Miami since 1950, and the reanalysis gives landfall at 95 kt, Category 2. Damage ran in a strip 20 to 35 miles wide from Miami to Melbourne, mostly broken glass, water damage and citrus losses. Dunn's staff estimated Florida's direct and indirect costs at about $125 million and found no deaths in the state.

Cleo came ashore again near Savannah and crossed the Carolinas, then broke rainfall records around Norfolk, where 10.40 inches fell in 24 hours. Dunn's table puts Cleo's damage at $198.5 million across all the areas it affected.

Dora's strike on northeast Florida

Dora became the first hurricane on record to move inland from the east over extreme northeastern Florida. The eye crossed St. Augustine, and the reanalysis puts landfall there at 95 kt and 966 mb on 10 September, well below the storm's 115 kt peak at sea. Jacksonville recorded sustained hurricane-force winds for the first time in nearly 80 years of records. Final damage estimates reached $200 million to $230 million in Florida and $9 million in Georgia. Dunn listed one drowning at Live Oak as the only direct death, plus two Navy crew killed in an evacuation crash and two men lost securing boats.

Three other hurricanes stayed at sea in September. Ethel passed 100 miles west of Bermuda on 12 September. Gladys reached 945 mb and 140 mph winds on 17 September and came within 140 miles of Cape Hatteras, eroding the Outer Banks. Dora, Ethel and Tropical Storm Florence were all active on 7 September.

Hilda in Louisiana and Isbell's crossing of Florida

Hilda crossed western Cuba and deepened to 941 mb about 350 miles south of New Orleans on 1 October, near its 120 kt peak in the archive. It weakened before crossing the central Louisiana coast late on 3 October, and the reanalysis gives that landfall at 90 kt, Category 2. Franklin estimated 135 mph winds, and Jeanerette recorded 17.71 inches of rain. Dunn counted 37 deaths in Louisiana, 22 of them in a tornado at Larose, and gave a preliminary damage estimate near $100 million. More than 150,000 people evacuated the coast.

Isbell sat as a weak depression in the western Caribbean for several days before becoming a hurricane near western Cuba on 13 October, where three people died around Guane. It reached its 100 kt peak the next day, then came ashore near Everglades City at 90 kt and crossed the peninsula to Jupiter in about five hours. Eleven tornadoes touched down along the southeast Florida coast. The reanalysis added a tropical storm landfall west of Morehead City, North Carolina, on 16 October. Cleo, Dora and Hilda were retired after the season.