1975 Atlantic hurricane season

Six hurricanes after five lean years

The National Hurricane Center saw 1975 as a partial return to normal. Its eight named storms fell short of the 30-year average of nine for the fourth year running, but the six hurricanes matched the average and were the most since 1969. The season logged 26 hurricane days, the most since 1971. Over four years, the cool sea surface and strong shear that had held back the tropical Atlantic had shrunk in size and strength. The exception was the central and eastern Caribbean, where shear of 10 kt or more returned, and the Lesser Antilles went a ninth straight year without a hurricane.

The site counts 9 tropical storms, 6 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes, and accumulated cyclone energy of 76.1. Its storm count adds a December subtropical storm to the eight named storms. A later best track counts 12 nameable storms, 7 hurricanes and 4 majors, and includes a subtropical storm on 4 January that the site's archive does not list; by that count the season spanned 342 days.

Amy and Blanche off the Carolinas

Tropical Storm Amy formed north of the western Bahamas on 26 June and turned sharply east off the Outer Banks. Strong shear soon gave it a subtropical structure, but forecasters kept the name because the storm was close to land. Amy meandered northeast with winds near 60 kt, reached its lowest pressure of 981 mb on 2 July and passed southeast of Cape Race on 4 July. Its slow drift off North Carolina raised tides and swells that eroded beaches and briefly flooded roads. The current best track rates Amy a hurricane, and one person died when a ship capsized offshore.

Hurricane Blanche formed 500 nautical miles north of Hispaniola on 23 July and reached 75 kt and 980 mb late on 27 July over the same patch of ocean Amy had crossed. It hit the southern tip of Nova Scotia at daybreak on 28 July, where Halifax recorded gusts to 70 kt, and became extratropical near the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The NHC reported no deaths and minor damage. A depression that crossed southern Mississippi on 29 July caused more trouble: its rains reached 20 inches along the northwest Florida coast and caused an estimated $8.5 million in flood damage.

Caroline in Mexico and Doris by satellite

Hurricane Caroline struggled across eastern Cuba as a depression and only organized after it passed the Yucatan into the southwest Gulf on 28 August. It then deepened from 987 to 963 mb in 12 hours as its eye shrank from 20 to 8 nautical miles, reaching 100 kt a few hours before landfall about 100 nautical miles south of Brownsville on 31 August. An aerial survey found several small Mexican coastal communities destroyed, presumably by storm surge. Two people drowned in Texas.

Hurricane Doris began as a subtropical storm on a frontal wave near 31°N, 46°W on 28 August, beyond the range of reconnaissance aircraft. Forecasters used the new Dvorak satellite technique to judge that it had reached hurricane force late on 30 August, and estimated its 95 kt, 965 mb peak on 1 and 2 September the same way. Doris became the first storm upgraded to a hurricane from satellite imagery alone. It drifted slowly in the mid-Atlantic, never threatened land and caused no reported marine casualties.

Hurricane Eloise from Puerto Rico to the Panhandle

Eloise formed from an African wave about 500 nautical miles east of the Virgin Islands on 13 September and strengthened to minimal hurricane force before its center reached the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic. It then tracked across Hispaniola and extreme southeastern Cuba, spent about 36 hours largely over land, and fell to a minimal tropical storm. Torrential rain fell to its south and east: 10 to 20 inches across much of eastern and southwestern Puerto Rico, with 26.7 inches near Sabana Grande. The NHC recorded 34 confirmed deaths and over $60 million in damage in Puerto Rico, and cited press reports of 18 deaths in southern Haiti and 7 in the Dominican Republic.

Eloise crossed the Yucatan just north of Cozumel, turned north on 21 September and regained hurricane strength in the central Gulf the next morning. The tanker Exxon San Francisco and two experimental data buoys recorded its passage. It kept strengthening until landfall between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City shortly after 12 UTC on 23 September, where the NHC estimated its 110 kt peak and a 955 mb pressure measured at Destin. The site places the peak at the same time. A tower 13 miles off Panama City measured a 135 kt gust. It was the first major hurricane to strike the Panama City area that century.

Surge high-water marks reached 12 to 16 feet from east of Fort Walton Beach to south of Panama City, with 18.2 feet near Dune Allen Beach, and dune erosion let the water destroy buildings along the beach strip. About 100,000 people evacuated. The NHC listed four storm-related deaths in the Gulf states, none directly from wind or surge, and estimated about $100 million in property damage in northwest Florida and $100 million in crop and property losses in eastern Alabama. Eloise's moisture then fed a front over the Northeast, where rain of 10 to 14 inches flooded the Susquehanna, Potomac and other rivers, 17 people died and damage reached an estimated $300 million.

The NHC's season table lists $550 million in U.S. damage from Eloise in 1975 dollars, including the Puerto Rico losses, and 21 U.S. deaths. Other totals give 80 deaths across the storm's path.

Faye near Bermuda and Gladys off Hatteras

Hurricane Faye formed west of the Cape Verde Islands on 18 September, weakened in westerly shear and then regained hurricane strength on 25 September as it turned northwest. The German ship Blexen reported 90 kt winds and 35-foot seas near the center, which passed about 30 nautical miles east of Bermuda. The island stayed on the weak side, with minor damage. Faye turned northeast and became extratropical north of the Azores on 29 September.

Hurricane Gladys followed Faye out of Africa by about four days on a more southern path and met the same shear, barely holding hurricane strength for four days. North of Puerto Rico it steadied near 975 mb, then deepened fast as it recurved on 1 October. An Air Force aircraft measured 939 mb at 08:46 UTC on 2 October, with estimated surface winds of 120 kt and flight-level winds of 169 kt, and the Cape Hatteras radar picked up its eye from more than 225 nautical miles away. The NHC called Gladys the most intense hurricane to threaten the eastern seaboard since Hazel in 1954. It passed about 70 nautical miles southeast of Cape Race on 3 October with no reported casualties.

Tropical Storm Hallie grew from a subtropical depression off Daytona Beach in late October and peaked at 45 kt while skirting the Outer Banks, leaving no casualties. A subtropical storm in the north central Atlantic in December, which dove south at 25 kt before weakening, gives the season its last tropical-stage point on 13 December.