1999 Atlantic hurricane season

Five Category 4 hurricanes

The National Hurricane Center's season summary counted 12 named storms, 4 tropical storms and 8 hurricanes, plus 4 depressions that never reached storm strength. The eight hurricanes beat the 1950 to 1999 average of 5.9. Bret, Cindy, Floyd, Gert and Lenny all reached Category 4, the most in one season since 1886 in the NHC count. The site's archive agrees on 12 tropical storms, 8 hurricanes and 5 major hurricanes, and puts accumulated cyclone energy at 176.5.

Tropical waves drove the season. Of the 59 waves that crossed the longitude of Dakar between May and November, 11 seeded named storms, 92 percent of the year's total against a 1967 to 1999 average of 62 percent. A La Niña that had persisted since 1998 drove the activity, along with very low wind shear over the Caribbean and western Atlantic from August to October.

Bret in Texas and Dennis off the Carolinas

Tropical Storm Arlene passed east of Bermuda in June, and then nothing formed for two months. Hurricane Bret formed in the Bay of Campeche on 18 August and deepened 35 mb in 24 hours over 31°C water, reaching 125 kt and 944 mb just off Brownsville on 22 August. It weakened to Category 3, with 100 kt winds and a pressure of 951 mb, before its center crossed Padre Island midway between Brownsville and Corpus Christi at 0000 UTC on 23 August. Bret was the strongest hurricane to hit Texas since Alicia in 1983.

Bret was small, and its core struck sparsely populated Kennedy County, where radar suggested more than 760 mm of rain. The NHC reported no deaths and estimated damage at $60 million in 1999 dollars. Hurricane Cindy reached 120 kt far out in the Atlantic without touching land, and Tropical Storm Emily stayed at sea.

Hurricane Dennis brushed the Bahamas, held 90 kt winds for 36 hours from 28 to 30 August and stalled off Cape Hatteras. After drifting for days it came ashore at Cape Lookout National Seashore on 4 September just below hurricane strength. Its rain soaked eastern North Carolina ahead of Floyd. The NHC tied four deaths in Florida to high surf and estimated damage at $157 million in 1999 dollars, including agricultural losses.

Floyd's flood in the eastern United States

Hurricane Floyd formed about 1,000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles on 7 September. After a wobble northeast of the islands it turned west, and its pressure fell about 40 mb as it strengthened to its peak of 135 kt and 921 mb on 13 September, the season's strongest storm. An eyewall replacement weakened it slightly as it crossed Eleuthera and Abaco on 14 September. Floyd then paralleled the Florida coast and came ashore near Cape Fear, North Carolina, early on 16 September as a Category 2 hurricane with winds near 90 kt.

A front ahead of Floyd had already soaked the mid-Atlantic, and the hurricane added far more. Wilmington recorded 484 mm, including a 24-hour record of 383 mm, and totals topped 300 mm from Virginia to New Jersey. Hurricane warnings ran from south Florida to Plymouth, Massachusetts, for the first time since Donna in 1960, and more than two million people evacuated, reported as the largest evacuation in U.S. history.

The NHC counted 57 direct deaths: 56 in the United States, 35 of them in North Carolina, and 1 on Grand Bahama, most from freshwater drowning. Floyd was the deadliest hurricane in the United States since Agnes in 1972. Insured losses came to $1.325 billion, and the NHC estimated total damage at $4.5 billion in 1999 dollars, noting that the heavy share of flood damage skewed its usual two-to-one ratio.

Hurricane Gert followed Floyd across the Atlantic, peaked at 130 kt on 16 September and passed about 115 nautical miles east of Bermuda on 21 September. Its swells swept two people to their deaths at Schoodic Point, Maine, more than 1,000 nautical miles from the center. Tropical Storm Harvey crossed south Florida from Everglades City on 21 September, and its remnants caused the worst flooding in 30 years in parts of Nova Scotia.

October floods in Mexico and Florida

The season's deadliest system never became a named storm. Tropical Depression Eleven formed east-northeast of Veracruz on 4 October and meandered over the Bay of Campeche for two days. It fed prolonged rain over Puebla, Tabasco and Veracruz, and press reports cited by the NHC put flood deaths at about 400.

Hurricane Irene crossed western Cuba as a tropical storm on 14 October, became a hurricane over the Florida Straits and passed over Key West on 15 October. It came ashore near Cape Sable and crossed southeast Florida, dropping up to 443 mm in South Miami. The NHC listed eight indirect deaths, five from electrocution and three from drivers entering flooded canals, and estimated Florida losses near $800 million in 1999 dollars. Off North Carolina on 18 October Irene deepened to its peak of 95 kt and 958 mb before heading out to sea.

Hurricane Jose reached its peak of 85 kt on 20 October as it neared the northern Leeward Islands, passed over Antigua that day and weakened to a tropical storm by Tortola. The NHC counted two deaths, one in Antigua and one in St. Maarten. Tropical Storm Katrina was a storm for only about six hours as it came ashore south of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, on 30 October.

Lenny's west-to-east track

Hurricane Lenny formed south of the Cayman Islands on 13 November and, steered by a deep trough over the western Atlantic, moved east across the Caribbean at up to 14 kt, an extended west-to-east track with no precedent in about 150 years of records. It reached its peak of 135 kt and 933 mb on 17 November about 18 nautical miles south of St. Croix, where a dropsonde measured a record 183 kt at 891 mb. Lenny then slowed and weakened, drifting over St. Maarten, Anguilla and St. Barthelemy on 18 and 19 November before a final landfall on Antigua.

Its slow drift brought 700 mm of rain to Philipsburg on St. Maarten, and waves and surge from the west struck harbors that rarely faced them, from Frederiksted on St. Croix to Guadeloupe. The NHC counted 17 direct deaths across the Caribbean and offshore, and estimated damage in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands at $330 million in 1999 dollars. The World Meteorological Organization retired Floyd and Lenny in 2000, replacing them with Franklin and Lee for 2005.