1986 Atlantic hurricane season

Six storms and short-lived hurricanes

The National Hurricane Center tracked two tropical storms and four hurricanes in 1986, against a 50-year average of ten storms a year, and noted only eight seasons in that span with six or fewer. The site's archive agrees: 6 tropical storms, 4 hurricanes, none major, and an accumulated cyclone energy of 35.8. It was the least active season since 1983 and the first since 1972 without a major hurricane, and an ongoing El Niño held the totals down.

Earl was the only lasting hurricane, with hurricane-force winds for seven days. The other three held sustained winds of 33 m/s or more for less than 24 hours each. Colorado State University's July forecast of 7 named storms and 4 hurricanes came close, almost exactly matching the outcome.

Andrew off the Carolinas and Bonnie in Texas

A subtropical depression near the northern Bahamas on 5 June became Tropical Storm Andrew the next day, the archive's first tropical-stage observation of the year. Andrew recurved about 100 km off Cape Hatteras, and no sustained gales reached land. The NHC attributed one drowning in North Carolina to the storm, in high surf on Ocracoke Island.

Hurricane Bonnie formed from a frontal cloud system in the east-central Gulf of Mexico on 23 June and reached hurricane strength on 25 June. The archive places its peak of 75 kt early on 26 June, before it came ashore just southwest of Sea Rim State Park, Texas, that morning. The park recorded 990.5 mb at landfall and a sustained wind of 34 m/s an hour later, the highest over land. Sabine Pass saw a 1.6 m surge, and Ace, Texas, recorded 330 mm of rain.

The NHC attributed three deaths in the Port Arthur area to Bonnie and estimated damage at $2 million in 1986 dollars. The deaths came from two car accidents and a house fire, and a later damage figure reaches about $42 million, including flood damage to hundreds of homes in northwestern Louisiana.

Hurricane Charley along the East Coast

Charley began as a broad circulation west of Tampa on 12 August, crossed the Florida Panhandle and Georgia over land, and moved back offshore on 15 August before strengthening into a tropical storm. It turned north on 17 August, became a hurricane and crossed extreme eastern North Carolina, where Swanquarter recorded 992.6 mb. Hurricane warnings went up piecemeal from Bogue Inlet, North Carolina, to Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

Back over the Atlantic, Charley fell below hurricane strength, but the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel still measured 43 m/s sustained winds on its east side late on 17 August. Tropical storm winds reached Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Massachusetts, and Nantucket saw a 1.2 m surge. The NHC listed five deaths, three in Maryland, one in North Carolina and one in Virginia, and $15 million in damage. Charley later became a large extratropical storm that crossed to the British Isles and northern Europe by the end of August.

Earl at sea and a late Frances

Tropical Storm Danielle crossed the Windward Islands on 8 September, damaging crops on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and lost its convection in the central Caribbean two days later. Hurricane Earl formed about 2,000 km east of Puerto Rico on 10 September. Aircraft measured winds near 40 m/s across a broad area and a highest wind of 46 m/s, and the archive places Earl's peak of 90 kt on 12 September. It drifted east for several days before a frontal trough carried it into the far North Atlantic.

No storm formed in October. Hurricane Frances developed east-northeast of Puerto Rico on 18 November, held hurricane strength for about 24 hours at sea and merged with an extratropical low on 21 November, the archive's last tropical-stage observation. Frances was the latest sixth named storm on record since the Atlantic began naming storms in 1950.