1974 Atlantic hurricane season

A fifth quiet year, with milder shear

The National Hurricane Center named seven storms in 1974, four of them hurricanes, against 30-year averages of nine and six, and counted 19 hurricane days against a 20-year average of 29. The upper westerlies and cool sea surface that had held back the three previous seasons were still present, though weaker. Vertical shear over the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean was lower than in 1972 and 1973, and every named storm reached storm strength where the mid-season mean shear was under 10 kt. Sea temperatures ran slightly below normal but stayed above 27°C where all seven storms developed.

June and July produced no tropical storms. In August a strong subtropical ridge built from the Gulf of Mexico across the Atlantic and held into September, steering Alma, Carmen, Fifi and Gertrude west through the Caribbean. Strong westerlies north of 35°N carried Becky, Dolly and Elaine northeast out to sea.

The NHC also classified four subtropical storms. The site's count of 11 tropical storms includes them alongside the seven named storms, because the archive counts subtropical winds of 34 kt or more; accumulated cyclone energy comes to 70.9. A newer best track counts 13 named storms, with the same four hurricanes and two majors.

Florida floods in June and Alma over Trinidad

The first subtropical storm formed in the eastern Gulf of Mexico on 24 June and crossed the Florida peninsula the next morning, with gusts of 45 to 55 kt around Fort Myers and Naples. Together with a tropical depression that came ashore two days later, it left 20 inches of rain in the Tampa Bay area. The NHC recorded three drownings in Florida and about $10 million in flood damage in western Florida. Two more subtropical storms in July and August stayed at sea, and a fourth, in October, pushed tides up to 3 feet above normal on the Florida east coast and dropped 14 inches of rain in places.

Tropical Storm Alma formed from a disturbance in the intertropical convergence zone, reached storm strength near 10°N, 52°W on 13 August and crossed Trinidad, farther south than any storm of record except one in 1933. It broke up over the mountains of northern Venezuela. The NHC counted two deaths on Trinidad as a direct result of the storm, and 47 people died on Isla de Margarita when a passenger plane crashed as Alma's rain shield passed; other counts give 49 deaths in that crash.

Hurricane Carmen misses Belize City and New Orleans

Carmen formed from an African wave east of Guadeloupe on 29 August and moved south of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, where its rains caused more than $2 million in damage in Puerto Rico. It became a hurricane south of Jamaica on 31 August. Over the warm northwest Caribbean it deepened fast, reaching 130 kt and 928 mb just before landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula on 2 September, the site's peak. The Belize radar showed it veering northwest, and the center passed a few miles north of Chetumal, Mexico, where sustained winds reached 118 kt, sparing Belize City and Corozal.

Carmen regained hurricane strength on 5 September over the Gulf and again reached 130 kt, with a 937 mb pressure, over the northern Gulf. Drier air then entered the storm and it weakened before landfall on 8 September, turning northwest short of New Orleans. The highest sustained wind measured in Louisiana was 75 kt at Morgan City. Over 75,000 people evacuated in Louisiana and Mississippi. The NHC estimated Louisiana damage at about $150 million in 1974 dollars, including $90 million in sugar cane and other crops, and recorded one direct U.S. death, an electrocution. Other totals give 12 deaths across the storm's path.

Hurricane Fifi and the Honduras floods

Fifi came off Africa on 8 September, became a depression south of Haiti on 15 September and a hurricane east of Swan Island on 17 September. It peaked at 95 kt on 18 September while skirting the north coast of Honduras, then weakened slightly before landfall in southern Belize late on 19 September. Guanaja, off the Honduran coast, recorded 115 kt winds. Fifi crossed Belize and southern Mexico and regenerated in the Pacific as Orlene, which the site carries on the same track.

Moist inflow from both the Caribbean and the Pacific dropped 20 inches of rain or more in the Honduran mountains. Rivers flooded and tilled slopes gave way, burying people in mudslides. The NHC wrote that the Red Cross had confirmed 3,000 deaths by actual count, with other estimates up to 10,000. Later tallies give at least 8,210 deaths, which would make Fifi the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since the 1900 Galveston hurricane. The names Carmen and Fifi were both retired.

Becky, Dolly, Elaine and Gertrude

Hurricane Becky formed west of Bermuda and strengthened around an anticyclone near the Azores, reaching 100 kt and 977 mb on 30 August. It sat across the main north Atlantic shipping lanes for several days but never threatened land. Tropical storms Dolly and Elaine both formed east of the United States and raced northeast to merge with cold fronts, Dolly's remnants bringing gusts of 54 kt to Sable Island.

Hurricane Gertrude, the last named storm, grew from a convergence-zone disturbance and briefly reached 65 kt on 28 September. It never formed an eyewall, and the NHC concluded that the hurricane-force winds came in short bursts. Shear weakened it to a depression before it reached the Windward Islands on 2 October, and it caused no substantial damage.