1977 Atlantic hurricane season

A season squeezed into 51 days

The National Hurricane Center called 1977 an inactive season. It named six storms, five of which reached hurricane force, and counted only nine hurricane days against a 20-year average of 29. The first storm was named on 29 August, a later start than in fewer than one season in ten since 1886, and the named-storm season lasted only 51 days, against a ten-year average of 110. Every storm formed west of 60°W, which had happened only once before in 30 years, in 1972.

Sea temperatures and vertical shear over the tropics were near normal, so the usual explanations for a quiet year did not apply. The NHC instead pointed to a weak subtropical ridge in September that halved the easterlies at 700 mb between 5°N and 25°N and weakened the wind shear that feeds African waves. A related NHC review noted that tropical storm activity across the Northern Hemisphere ran about 30 percent below normal. An El Niño that began developing in August helped keep the season quiet.

The site counts 6 tropical storms, 5 hurricanes and 1 major hurricane, matching the NHC's named storms. Several depressions formed from June to early August without reaching storm strength.

Hurricane Anita in the western Gulf

Anita came from a tropical wave that left Africa on 16 August and brought rain to the Bahamas, Florida and western Cuba. It became a depression about 200 nautical miles south-southwest of New Orleans on 29 August and moved west-southwest at 4 to 10 kt, strengthening steadily over the Gulf. A hurricane watch went up for Texas and southwest Louisiana on 30 August, and a warning from south of Corpus Christi to Brownsville on 1 September. Anita then turned from a heading of 260° to 235°, moving the main threat to northeastern Mexico.

The NHC gave Anita a central pressure of 926 mb and winds of 150 kt, making it the fourth most intense storm then on record in the Gulf of Mexico. The site places that 150 kt peak at 06 UTC on 2 September, five hours before landfall at 11 UTC about 80 nautical miles north of Tampico. The nearest town in its path, the inland village of Soto la Marina, reported 17.52 inches of rain in six hours.

The coast Anita struck was sparsely settled, and the NHC had no damage estimate, though fishing and farming communities in its path suffered extensive losses. Its table lists 10 deaths in Mexico. Almost 100,000 people evacuated, 35,000 of them on the Mexican coast and the rest in Texas and Louisiana, including 7,000 offshore oil workers. Other accounts give 11 deaths and at least 25,000 people left homeless.

Babe on the Louisiana coast and Clara off Hatteras

Babe formed in the east central Gulf on 3 September from an African wave beneath a cold upper low. Forecasters named it while it was still not fully tropical, because a band of gales was hitting the coast. On the evening of 4 September, with the center 70 nautical miles from Louisiana after dark, they took what they called the course of least regret and upgraded Babe to a hurricane. Post-analysis found hurricane strength only at 06 UTC on 5 September, with 995 mb and winds over water of no more than 65 kt, and doubted that hurricane-force winds reached land. Babe came ashore that morning.

Tides near 5 feet in southeast Louisiana flooded low areas already high from Anita's passage days earlier. Tornadoes touched down in southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi and near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and up to 7 inches of rain fell in the mountains of Tennessee and the Carolinas. The NHC estimated $10 million in damage in 1977 dollars, mostly in southern Louisiana, and no deaths; other estimates reach $13 million.

Hurricane Clara grew from a convective band tied to Babe's early stages and became a depression just north of Charleston on 5 September. It strengthened as it accelerated east of Cape Hatteras and reached 65 kt and 993 mb on 8 September. Shear then weakened it, and it traced a tight loop and briefly threatened Bermuda on 10 September before an extratropical low absorbed it.

Dorothy, Evelyn and Frieda

Hurricane Dorothy started as a wave that brought gusts to 60 kt and 5 to 8 inches of rain to Guadeloupe and Martinique on 21 September. It crossed Hispaniola, turned north through the eastern Bahamas and became a depression north of the islands on 26 September. Dorothy peaked at 75 kt and 980 mb on 28 September as it raced toward colder water, and a frontal low east of Newfoundland absorbed it. Its only threat was to the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Hurricane Evelyn formed 400 nautical miles south of Bermuda on 13 October and passed over the island on 14 October, when the naval air station recorded a wind shift and 1003.8 mb. It accelerated to 30 kt forward speed, became a hurricane early on 15 October and crossed western Newfoundland as it merged with a front, with no reports of damage. Tropical Storm Frieda formed near Swan Island on 16 October, reached 50 kt in a band of westerly winds off Honduras, and crossed the Belize coast just north of Belize City on 18 October well below gale force.