2002 Atlantic hurricane season

Season overview

By raw numbers 2002 looked busy: 12 tropical storms was two more than the long-term average the National Hurricane Center used at the time. Yet only 4 of them became hurricanes, two fewer than average, and many of the named storms were weak and lasted only a day or two. Accumulated cyclone energy, which rewards strength and staying power rather than headcount, came to 67.4 on the site's measure, well below a typical season. The NHC's own 2002 summary put the figure at 65.1, about 74 percent of the long-term median; the small gap comes from the site using today's IBTrACS track data and counting only the tropical and subtropical stages within the calendar year.

A moderate El Niño in the equatorial Pacific set the tone. It helped drive unusually strong vertical wind shear over the Caribbean and the tropical Atlantic during August, and the waters between Africa and the Lesser Antilles ran slightly cooler than normal, while the western Atlantic south of 35°N was slightly warm. Shear eased in September, but the deep tropics stayed largely unproductive: only three named storms, Dolly, Isidore and Lili, grew from African tropical waves, about 25 percent against a usual share of more than 60 percent. Most of the season's systems instead formed at subtropical latitudes north of 25°N, often from decaying fronts and troughs, and Gustav and Kyle both began life as subtropical cyclones.

How the season unfolded

The season opened late and slowly. Tropical Storm Arthur formed off the North Carolina coast on 14 July and raced out toward Newfoundland. Early August brought two weak storms born from the same stalled trough: Tropical Storm Bertha, which formed just before landfall in southeastern Louisiana and later drifted back into the Gulf to end in southern Texas, and Tropical Storm Cristobal off South Carolina, which was soon absorbed into a front. Tropical Storm Dolly followed at the end of August as the first system of the year to form in the deep tropics, but shear stopped it well short of the hurricane strength some early forecasts had expected.

September then produced eight named storms, the most on record for a single calendar month at the time. Tropical Storm Edouard looped off Florida before coming ashore near Ormond Beach, Tropical Storm Fay flooded the upper Texas coast, and Gustav became the season's first hurricane on 11 September, the latest date for a first Atlantic hurricane since routine aircraft reconnaissance began in 1944. Tropical Storm Hanna, Hurricane Isidore, Tropical Storm Josephine, Hurricane Kyle and Hurricane Lili all formed in the second half of the month, with Isidore and Lili tracking through the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico.

After Lili dissipated on 4 October, the season effectively ended early. Kyle lingered in the subtropical Atlantic for weeks before brushing the Carolinas on 11 October, and the only new October system was a tropical depression in the western Caribbean that crossed central Cuba and was absorbed by a front on 16 October, the last tropical observation of the year. A second short-lived depression in early September never reached storm strength either.

Strongest storms

Two storms reached major hurricane strength, and both took almost the same path across western Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico within two weeks of each other. Hurricane Isidore peaked at 110 kt (Category 3) on 21 September just before striking the northern Yucatán Peninsula, and its central pressure of 934 hPa was the lowest of the season. The NHC noted that such a low pressure would usually go with stronger winds, a reminder that pressure alone is an imperfect gauge of intensity.

Hurricane Lili was the season's strongest by wind. After crossing western Cuba near 90 kt, it intensified rapidly over the Gulf on 2 October to 125 kt (Category 4) with a pressure of 938 hPa. Its eastern eyewall passed over NOAA buoy 42001, which logged a 10-minute wind of 98 kt and a gust of 130 kt, the highest sustained wind and gust ever recorded by a National Data Buoy Center buoy at the time. Lili then weakened even faster than it had strengthened, losing about 45 kt in the 13 hours before landfall.

The other two hurricanes stayed at lower intensity. Gustav, a Category 2 storm at 85 kt, grew stronger while interacting with a developing nontropical low over New England and southeastern Canada before hitting Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Kyle peaked at 75 kt far east-southeast of Bermuda and was the season's longest-lived system, drifting and looping for about three weeks.

Landfalls and impacts

Eight named storms made landfall in the United States, though most were weak. Tropical Storm Fay came ashore near Port O'Connor, Texas, on 7 September, and it and its remnants dropped extreme rain, including more than 400 mm at Fowlerton. Thousands of homes in Brazoria, Galveston, Matagorda and Wharton counties were flooded or damaged, and 12 tornadoes touched down, but no deaths were reported. Tropical Storm Hanna's rip currents drowned three swimmers off the Florida Panhandle, and its rains caused about 20 million US dollars (2002 values) in damage, mostly crop losses and flooding in southwest Georgia. Tropical Storm Bertha was linked to one surf drowning in Florida.

Hurricane Gustav brushed the Outer Banks as a tropical storm on 10 September, pushing a 1.5 to 1.8 m surge onto the sound side of Hyde and Dare counties, where 40 people had to be rescued. One swimmer died after being injured in high surf at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Gustav then struck Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, as an 80 kt hurricane on 12 September and made a second landfall in southwestern Newfoundland as it became extratropical. Hurricane Kyle's late landfalls in South Carolina and North Carolina on 11 October came at only 35 kt, but tornadoes in Georgetown, South Carolina, and Beaufort County, North Carolina, destroyed homes; the NHC estimated about 5 million US dollars (2002 values) in total damage and no deaths.

Hurricane Isidore brought torrential rain to Jamaica and struck western Cuba as a Category 1 hurricane on 20 September, then hit the northern Yucatán coast near Puerto Telchac at its 110 kt peak and stalled over the peninsula for a day or more, causing severe damage to farming and cattle. It later came ashore just west of Grand Isle, Louisiana, on 26 September as a broad 55 kt tropical storm with surges of about 2.5 m in Louisiana and Mississippi. The NHC counted five direct deaths in the United States and two indirect deaths in Mérida, Mexico, plus one indirect death in Mississippi. It estimated US damage at 330 million US dollars (2002 values), double the insured losses, with most of it in Louisiana.

Hurricane Lili caused 13 direct deaths outside the United States: four in landslides on St. Vincent as it crossed the Windward Islands as a tropical storm, four in floods in Jamaica, where more than 600 mm of rain fell as it crawled past, four by drowning in Haiti and one in Cuba's Pinar del Río province. Some 360,000 people were evacuated in Cuba, where Lili cut a swath of damage across the west. In Louisiana it came ashore near Intracoastal City on 3 October with 80 kt winds and a storm tide as high as 3.8 m, flattening sugar cane and breaching levees in Montegut and Franklin. The NHC estimated US damage at 860 million US dollars (2002 values), double the insured total, and recorded two indirect deaths in Louisiana.

Records and forecasting

Lili was the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Irene in October 1999, ending a gap of nearly three years. Its sudden collapse before landfall also showed the limits of intensity forecasting in 2002: neither the official NHC forecasts nor the leading statistical guidance anticipated either the rapid strengthening or the even faster weakening. Track forecasts, by contrast, kept improving, with official errors 10 to 14 percent below the previous ten-year average. 2002 was also the first season in which NHC included forecasts made during the tropical depression stage in its verification figures.

Kyle's 22-day life placed it among the longest-lasting tropical cyclones on Atlantic record, behind only Ginger in 1971 and Inga in 1969 in the NHC's season summary. The World Meteorological Organization retired the names Isidore and Lili in the spring of 2003 because of the damage both storms caused, replacing them with Ike and Laura.