1981 Atlantic hurricane season

A busy year with no hurricane landfall

The National Hurricane Center counted 11 named tropical cyclones, 7 of them hurricanes, plus one subtropical storm, against 1944 to 1980 averages of 9.9 named storms and 6.0 hurricanes. The site's archive lists 12 tropical storms because it counts the November subtropical storm, which reached 34 kt or more while subtropical. The archive also records 7 hurricanes, 3 of them major, and an accumulated cyclone energy of 100.3. That total was near normal.

The NHC summary opens with a plain statement: no hurricane made landfall in 1981. No named storm entered the Gulf of Mexico either, which the center said had happened only twice before that century, in 1927 and 1962. It linked the September tracks to a trough over the western North Atlantic, where surface pressure heights ran 45 m below normal and turned storms north well east of North America.

Depressions, spring storms and frontal lows

The archive's first tropical-stage observation comes on 6 April, from one of two short-lived April depressions. Tropical Storm Arlene formed near the Cayman Islands on 6 May from a cloud system that had crossed Central America from the Pacific. It reached 50 kt, crossed eastern Cuba on 8 May and lost its identity east of the Bahamas the next day. The NHC noted that May tropical storms are rare, and neither Cuba nor the Bahamas reported damage or casualties.

Tropical Storm Bret and Tropical Storm Cindy both formed off the mid-Atlantic coast from systems tied to the westerlies. Bret came ashore near southern Chesapeake Bay early on 1 July after weakening, and the NHC reported only street flooding and a brief tornado near Virginia Beach. One person died in a riptide at Nags Head, North Carolina. Cindy grew from a frontal wave on 2 August and headed northeast to sea.

Two depressions that never became named storms caused more harm than most of the named ones. Tropical Depression Two brought 15 inches of rain to the Houston area and eight tornadoes to Louisiana in early June. In late August, Tropical Depression Eight came ashore in Tamaulipas and its remnant fed thunderstorms over southeastern Texas that dropped 21 inches at Pine Springs. Floodwaters from that depression killed five people in Shiner.

Hurricane Dennis and the South Florida rain

Dennis formed from an African wave, weakened to a tropical wave in the Caribbean, then regained storm strength on 16 August as it turned north across central Cuba. The poorly defined center drifted over Florida, where Dade County measured 390 mm of rain in 24 hours on 18 August and 516 mm over the storm. Dennis reached hurricane strength only on 20 August, with 70 kt winds, while heading away from the mid-Atlantic coast.

The NHC estimated $25 million in United States rainfall damage from Dennis in 1981 dollars, mostly to agriculture. Other totals give three deaths overall, including one death in Florida and two in a weather-related traffic accident in South Carolina.

Five September hurricanes over open water

Emily, Floyd, Gert, Harvey and Irene all became hurricanes during September, which the NHC said had happened only twice before. Emily began as a frontal wave east of Jacksonville, passed 75 km from Bermuda on 2 September and looped north of the island before peaking at 80 kt and 966 mb. Floyd formed near the Leeward Islands, turned north through the gap Emily left in the subtropical ridge, and peaked at 100 kt on 7 September before passing southeast of Bermuda. Bermuda had only minor damage.

Gert crossed the Leeward Islands and passed directly over eastern Puerto Rico on 8 September as a weak tropical storm, without gale-force winds at any island station. St. Thomas recorded 149 mm of rain in 24 hours. Gert then strengthened over the Bahamas and recurved past Bermuda as a Category 2 hurricane.

Hurricane Harvey formed about 1,300 km east of Dominica on 11 September and reached hurricane strength only six hours after it was named. Reconnaissance aircraft followed it as it recurved, and at 0000 GMT on 15 September it reached 115 kt and 946 mb, the highest wind and lowest pressure of the year. It passed more than 300 km southeast of Bermuda. Irene, the last of the series, peaked at 105 kt and 959 mb on 28 September over the central Atlantic and weakened north of the Azores.

Katrina in Cuba and a November coastal storm

Tropical Storm Jose formed from a midlatitude low near 25°N in late October and was tracked by satellite alone. Hurricane Katrina formed south of the Cayman Islands and reached 75 kt in the archive before weakening as it approached Cuba. More than 30,000 people evacuated. The NHC gave Katrina's winds as 31 m/s, about 60 kt, as the center crossed eastern Cuba early on 6 November, below its peak, and Cuban sources reported two deaths from flooding.

The subtropical storm formed from a frontal wave over the Gulf Stream on 12 November and moved north parallel to the coast for five days, reaching Nova Scotia on 17 November. Its central pressure fell to 978 mb on 15 November. The NHC reported coastal flooding and beach erosion from Florida to Maine. The archive gives this storm no tropical-stage winds, so its record ends the season on 17 November without a tropical peak.