1973 Atlantic hurricane season

Shear and cool water, again

The National Hurricane Center described 1973 as the third below-normal year in four, part of a lull that began in 1970 when strong upper westerlies set up over the Caribbean and the ocean between Africa and the Antilles ran cool. It named seven storms, four of them hurricanes, against 30-year averages of nine and six. The number of disturbances leaving Africa was normal. Vertical shear over the development areas stayed about as strong as in 1972, and sea temperatures, though warmer than the year before, sat near the threshold for development.

The NHC counted 16 deaths across the basin and damage under $20 million, with U.S. losses and deaths the lowest since 1963 and 1968. The site counts 8 tropical storms, 4 hurricanes and 1 major hurricane, and accumulated cyclone energy of 47.9; its total includes subtropical storm Alfa. A newer reanalysis lists 12 nameable storms and 5 hurricanes, adding unnamed tropical storms and upgrading Delia to a hurricane.

A July hurricane at Bermuda

Several weak depressions formed from April through June without reaching storm strength. Hurricane Alice then grew from a tropical wave and a mid-level trough northeast of the Bahamas, was named on 2 July and headed north. The NHC called it the first tropical storm or hurricane on record to form or pass near Bermuda in July. Its eyewall brushed the island on 4 July, the day the site records its 80 kt peak, with gusts to 87 mph, and 4.57 inches of rain ended a three-month drought. Alice reached western Newfoundland as a tropical storm on 6 July.

Subtropical Storm Alfa formed about 200 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras on 30 July and was designated the next day, when aircraft found 40 kt winds and a 1005 mb pressure. It dissipated off southern Maine on 2 August.

Hurricane Brenda turns into Campeche Bay

Brenda came from a wave that left Africa on 9 August and organized in the western Caribbean. It crossed the Yucatan coast 30 miles north of Cozumel on 18 August, passed over Mérida, and a ridge over Texas and Mexico then pushed it southwest into the Bay of Campeche. There it deepened fast: aircraft found 977 mb and 70 kt around 00 UTC on 21 August, and the site places its 80 kt peak six hours later, near its landfall 30 miles west of Carmen. The NHC called it the first hurricane on record to strike the southeastern shore of the bay from the Gulf.

Tidal flooding from Veracruz to Campeche killed 10 people in coastal towns, and Campeche itself was 80 percent flooded, its worst in 25 years. Half the houses in Tabasco's coastal municipalities were destroyed, leaving 2,000 homeless, and 2,000 more lost homes in Carmen. The NHC noted that press reports wrongly blamed Brenda for flooding across central Mexico that had followed three months of rain. The storm also crippled the Greek freighter Yucatan and ended the Acali raft experiment, which had sailed from the Canary Islands in May.

Christine from Africa and Delia's double landfall

Tropical Storm Christine left the African coast as a strong depression on 25 August, and the NHC called it the first storm since 1966, apart from Ginger of 1967, to form as far east as 30°W. It formed over Guinea, farther east than any other Atlantic tropical cyclone on record. It peaked on 2 September east of Guadeloupe, then weakened in shear before reaching Antigua. Squalls brought gusts of 49 kt to San Juan, and one person in Puerto Rico died when a fallen power line electrocuted them.

Delia formed off the Yucatan and moved into the Gulf on 2 September. It never built a full eyewall, and its sustained winds held at about 60 kt. It came ashore in the Galveston-Freeport area on the evening of 4 September, looped back over the water and came ashore again in the same area a day later. The NHC called it the first time a single storm had made two landfalls on the same stretch of U.S. coast. Its lowest pressure of 986 mb came just before the first landfall.

Tides of 4 to 6 feet flooded Baytown, and 8 to 10 inches of rain fell over southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana. Five people died in the Houston-Galveston area, two of them drowned in flooded culverts and two in road crashes. The NHC put U.S. damage at $18 million in 1973 dollars, $15 million of it crop losses shared with a depression that stalled over the same coast five days later and dropped up to 15 more inches of rain.

Ellen at sea, Fran past the Azores and Gilda's transformation

Hurricane Ellen formed south of the Cape Verde Islands on 14 September and turned northeast ahead of a deepening trough off the U.S. coast. A NOAA research aircraft measured 962 mb and 120 kt at 1,500 feet on 21 September; the site's one-minute surface peak is 100 kt on 22 September. Ellen raced northeast at 30 kt and became extratropical about 650 miles east of Newfoundland with no reported casualties. Skylab astronauts photographed it from orbit.

Hurricane Fran began as Subtropical Storm Bravo near 30°N, 67°W on 8 October. A day later aircraft found hurricane-force winds 15 miles from the center and a warm core, and the NHC renamed it. Fran passed about 30 miles north of Flores and Corvo in the Azores on 11 October at 35 kt forward speed and became extratropical off France late on 12 October, with no reported casualties.

Tropical Storm Gilda formed east of Grand Cayman in mid-October and threatened southeast Florida before shear stalled it east of Harbour Island. High tides and heavy rain ruined crops on several Bahamian islands. A cold trough then turned it into a huge subtropical storm that passed between Hatteras and Bermuda on 25 October with winds near 60 kt, and the NHC called Gilda the first tropical storm on record to pass through a subtropical stage on its way to becoming extratropical. Rough surf eroded beaches from Hatteras to Palm Beach, and no casualties were reported.