1965 Atlantic hurricane season

Few storms, cool air and one disaster

Arnold Sugg of the Weather Bureau office in Miami counted six tropical cyclones in 1965, four of them hurricanes, the fewest since 1946 apart from 1962. The site counts 10 tropical storms because the reanalysis added four short-lived storms that the Weather Bureau did not track: one in early September, one at the turn of October, one that reached northeast Florida on 18 October at 55 kt and one from late November into December. Accumulated cyclone energy in the site's archive calculation came to 86.7.

Sugg blamed cooler-than-normal air in the tropics and an unfavorable circulation from September onward. A full-latitude trough formed over North America and heights over the Gulf of Alaska rose to a record anomaly for September, a pattern that matched Ballenzweig's composite for the fewest tropical cyclones. In October the westerlies reached south into the Gulf of Mexico. 1965 was the first season to use the modern 1 June to 30 November bounds.

A Panhandle storm and a hurricane near the Azores

The first storm came out of the Gulf of Honduras in mid-June and moved into the Florida Panhandle between Valparaiso and Panama City on 15 June. Alligator Point recorded gusts to 75 mph, and tides of 2 to 6 feet above normal caused the only damage, near Apalachicola.

Hurricane Anna formed about 800 miles east of Bermuda on 21 August and became a hurricane farther north than any Atlantic storm observed before it, according to Sugg. It peaked at 90 kt in the archive on 24 August, and the reanalysis made it substantially stronger on 23 and 24 August from satellite, radar and ship data. Anna became extratropical west of Ireland on 26 August.

Hurricane Betsy's loop and turn

Betsy passed through the Leeward Islands as a tropical storm on 29 August and became a hurricane that afternoon. Its central pressure fell about 40 mb on 1 and 2 September to 942 mb, the lowest of its life, and the archive places its 120 kt peak on 2 September. Twice, rising pressure to the north blocked its northwestward course. After a loop east of the Bahamas, Betsy turned southwest late on 5 September toward Great Abaco.

The eye passed just north of Nassau, and the reanalysis puts a Bahamas landfall at 105 kt on 7 September. Losses in the islands came to 5 million pounds, about $14 million, much of it crops, and one man died aboard his ship in Nassau harbor. Betsy crossed the upper Florida Keys early on 8 September at 100 kt, Category 3. Tides reached an estimated 9 feet at North Key Largo, and water from Florida Bay and then the Atlantic flooded the Keys and parts of Miami Beach and southern Dade County.

Betsy floods New Orleans

Betsy crossed the Gulf of Mexico at about 22 mph, unusually fast for a Gulf storm. The eye, 40 miles across, reached Grand Isle shortly after 2100 CST on 9 September, and the reanalysis gives that landfall at 115 kt and 946 mb, Category 4, slightly below its earlier peak. Grand Isle and Houma both recorded 28.00 inches of pressure. The tide reached 12.4 feet at New Orleans and averaged 10 feet on the Louisiana coast east of Grand Isle.

Back levees east of the Mississippi River were topped and broken, and floodwater overwhelmed the city's pumps after about 90 percent of New Orleans lost electric power. Barges broke loose by the hundreds between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, including one carrying 600 tons of chlorine that sank in the river. About 300,000 people in Louisiana sought shelter. Sugg counted 58 deaths in Louisiana, 41 of them in Orleans Parish, plus 4 in Florida, 9 at sea off both coasts, 1 in Mississippi and 3 in Arkansas, for 75 in the United States, the most since Audrey in 1957.

Sugg put Betsy's damage at $1.2 billion in Louisiana, $139.3 million in Florida, $80 million in Mississippi, $500,000 in Alabama and $14 million in the Bahamas, and called it the most destructive hurricane on record at that time. Betsy became the first United States hurricane to cause at least $1 billion in losses, in 1965 dollars, and the name was retired.

Carol's long stall and Debbie's Mobile flood

Hurricane Carol formed off Africa in mid-September and drifted for five days within 100 miles of 34°N, 42°W before it accelerated past the Azores on 29 September; Corvo recorded gusts to 80 mph. Sugg noted that Betsy and Carol were the only storms with looping tracks in 1965. Hurricane Elena, the last named storm, developed from a weak circulation that TIROS X photographed on 11 October and stayed at sea.

Tropical Storm Debbie crossed the tip of Yucatán in late September and barely reached storm strength in the Gulf before fading just east of the Mississippi River delta on 29 September. Its rain did the damage: downtown Mobile, Alabama, received 16.85 inches overnight, and Sugg estimated flood damage there at $25 million.