1980 Atlantic hurricane season

Nine hurricanes after a late start

The National Hurricane Center counted 11 named storms and 9 hurricanes in 1980, against a 30-year average of 9.8 named storms and 6.0 hurricanes. Its season summary noted that the last year with as many hurricanes was 1969, and that only eight seasons since 1886 had produced nine or more. The site's archive gives the same 11 tropical storms and 9 hurricanes, 2 of them major, and an accumulated cyclone energy of 148.9. That total ran above normal in an ENSO-neutral year, with neither El Niño nor La Niña.

The archive holds 18 tracked systems in all, with the first tropical-stage observation on 17 July. Several were depressions that never reached storm strength, including three in July. Allen did not form until 1 August, more than a month after the median start date of 26 June the NHC cited, and June 1980 was the first June since 1971 without an active Atlantic cyclone.

Six named storms grew from tropical waves off Africa: Allen, Bonnie, Earl, Frances, Georges and Hermine. Charley, Ivan and Karl began as extratropical lows north of 35°N and only later showed tropical features on satellite pictures. The NHC could not classify the origins of Danielle and Jeanne as cleanly and suggested that a weak tropical wave may have combined with an existing disturbance in both cases.

Hurricane Allen and its three deepening cycles

Allen left Africa as a tropical wave on 29 July and moved west-northwest for ten days under a strong subtropical ridge. Reconnaissance flights logged 44 central pressure readings over six days, and they show Allen's pressure swinging through three cycles of about 50 mb. The first bottomed out at 911 mb early on 5 August south of Puerto Rico. The second reached 899 mb at 1742 GMT on 7 August in the Yucatán Channel, the second lowest Atlantic hurricane pressure in modern records at the time. The third reached 909 mb early on 9 August over the western Gulf of Mexico.

The archive places Allen's peak one-minute wind of 165 kt at 18 UTC on 7 August, the time of the 899 mb reading. Allen became the earliest Category 5 hurricane in the calendar year then on record, reaching that intensity on 5 August, a mark Hurricane Emily broke in 2005.

The eye threaded between islands and stayed over water, yet the eyewall hit several of them. Local officials in Barbados estimated $6 million in damage and reported no deaths. St. Lucia recorded 90 kt sustained winds at Hewanorra, and the NHC listed six deaths and $235 million in damage there. Haitian officials reported 220 deaths and $400 million in damage after the eye grazed the island's southwest tip late on 5 August, and Jamaica reported eight deaths and $100 million. The NHC also noted a Panamanian freighter with about 25 people aboard that vanished in Allen's path and was left out of its death totals.

Allen's weakened landfall in South Texas

Allen slowed over the Gulf of Mexico to about 6 kt, which delayed landfall and gave coastal residents time to prepare after hurricane warnings went up on 8 August. The eye crossed an undeveloped stretch of Padre Island just north of Brownsville at 0600 GMT on 10 August, with a central pressure of 945 mb and maximum sustained winds near 100 kt, well below its Caribbean peak. Port Mansfield measured a 104 kt gust and a 12 ft storm surge.

The NHC counted 29 tornadoes, including several between San Antonio and Austin, and rain totals of 15 to 20 inches in a swath inland from the coast. It estimated Texas damage at $300 million and listed two deaths in Texas, plus 13 people killed in a helicopter crash during an oil rig evacuation. Across the storm's whole path, later totals give at least 269 deaths and about $1.57 billion in damage in 1980 dollars. The World Meteorological Organization retired the name Allen in 1981.

Four storms named in two days

Hurricane Bonnie formed west of the Cape Verde Islands on 14 August and headed almost due north for 1,200 nautical miles, a track forecasters had not expected after Allen's westward run. The NHC tied the change to a weakening of the subtropical ridge in mid-August. Hurricane Charley grew from an extratropical low off Cape Hatteras and looped near Bermuda. Rip currents it generated drowned seven people on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Georges, Danielle, Earl and Frances all received names between 4 and 6 September, tying 1893 for the fastest four named storms in the basin. Earl, Frances and Georges all reached their peaks within a 24-hour period centered on 8 September, and a single satellite picture captured all three hurricanes. Frances remained a hurricane for 12 days, the first to last that long since Ginger in 1971, and peaked at 100 kt on 9 September. It became the season's longest-lived storm in the archive and its second major hurricane.

Tropical Storm Danielle formed off southeastern Louisiana on 4 September and crossed the coast at Galveston Bay the next evening with peak winds of 50 kt. Its rain did the damage. The NHC reported about 25 inches near Junction, Texas, a 24-hour record of 17.16 inches at Beaumont airport, and one death in Beaumont when a driver passed a barricade into deep water. Other counts give two deaths in Texas.

Hermine's floods and three late hurricanes

Tropical Storm Hermine formed east of Honduras on 21 September, came ashore just north of Belize City on 22 September, and made a second landfall southeast of Veracruz on 24 September with peak winds of 60 kt. Most forecast guidance expected a northward turn toward Texas, but Hermine turned southwest into Mexico instead. Flooding killed at least 30 people in Mexico, and landslides killed at least eight in Guatemala.

Hurricane Ivan developed from a cold low between the Azores and the Canary Islands over water of only about 23°C, and it held winds of 90 kt for four days in early October. In November, Hurricane Jeanne formed in the northwestern Caribbean and reached hurricane strength in the Gulf of Mexico on 11 November, one of only three Gulf hurricanes in November that century according to the NHC. Jeanne never made landfall, but its outer bands dropped a record 23.28 inches of rain on Key West in 24 hours. One indirect death occurred there.

Hurricane Karl formed on 25 November inside a large extratropical cyclone about 600 nautical miles west-southwest of the Azores and peaked at 75 kt. The NHC noted that no earlier hurricane had been observed so far east in the Atlantic during the last ten days of November. The archive records the season's last tropical-stage observation on 27 November.