2009 Atlantic hurricane season

A quiet year despite warm water

Eleven tropical cyclones appear in the archive for 2009, and two of them, a depression off North Carolina in May and another west of the Cape Verde Islands in September, never reached tropical storm force. The National Hurricane Center's count matches the site's: nine named storms, the fewest since 1997, against a long-term average of eleven, and three hurricanes against an average of six. Only the two major hurricanes kept pace with the long-term norm. By the NHC's measure, the season's energy came to roughly 60 percent of the 1951 to 2000 median.

The quiet came in spite of the ocean. Sea surface temperatures across the main development region between Africa and the Caribbean ran about half a degree Celsius above normal from August to October. An El Niño that began in June and strengthened through the autumn outweighed that warmth: a persistent upper-level trough over the Caribbean and central Atlantic raised vertical wind shear and suppressed rising air across the tropics, so that many of the season's systems formed, struggled against shear and stayed weak.

Forecasters had begun the year expecting more. Colorado State University's first outlook, issued in December 2008, called for 14 named storms and 7 hurricanes, but successive updates trimmed those numbers as a developing El Niño became more likely, and by June the team was predicting slightly below average activity.

A late start, then a thin but steady run

The first tropical depression formed on 28 May about 150 n mi east-northeast of Cape Hatteras, a few days before the official start of the season. It drifted over the Gulf Stream, lost its thunderstorms to westerly shear and dissipated south of Nova Scotia on 30 May. Then came more than two months without a storm. Tropical Storm Ana did not form until 11 August, the latest first tropical or subtropical storm in an Atlantic season since 1983.

Mid-August brought the season's only real burst. Ana formed west of the Cape Verde Islands, weakened, regenerated and finally opened into a wave before reaching the Lesser Antilles. Hurricane Bill followed on 15 August and Tropical Storm Claudette formed off southwest Florida on 16 August. Tropical Storm Danny, a lopsided storm with its strongest winds far from the center, formed well east of the Bahamas on 26 August and fell apart off the Carolinas three days later.

September gave Tropical Storm Erika, whose center stayed exposed to shear as it crossed Guadeloupe and died south of Puerto Rico, and Hurricane Fred, far out in the eastern Atlantic. October added two brief storms at opposite ends of the basin: Tropical Storm Grace, which developed from an old extratropical low near the Azores, and Tropical Storm Henri, which faded east of the Leeward Islands. Hurricane Ida closed the season in the western Caribbean in early November, and the last tropical observation in the archive is on 10 November.

Bill and Fred, the two major hurricanes

Hurricane Bill was the season's strongest storm and its first hurricane. It became a depression southwest of the Cape Verde Islands on 15 August, reached hurricane strength on 17 August and peaked at 115 kt, Category 4, early on 19 August about 300 n mi east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. Its eye had widened to about 30 n mi by then, and its lowest pressure of 943 hPa came about 42 hours after the wind peak, as the eye and the wind field kept growing. Bill turned north between the subtropical high and a trough near the East Coast, passed about 150 n mi west of Bermuda on 22 August and came ashore on the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland at 0300 UTC on 24 August as a tropical storm with 60 kt winds.

Hurricane Fred rose even faster. It formed south of the Cape Verde Islands on 7 September, became a hurricane late on 8 September and strengthened by 55 kt in the 24 hours ending at 1200 UTC on 9 September, when it peaked at 105 kt, Category 3, with a pressure of 958 hPa. An eyewall replacement and rising southwesterly shear then broke up its core, and it fell to a remnant low on 12 September. That remnant looped and wandered west for about a week before dissipating southwest of Bermuda, which is why Fred has the longest record of any 2009 storm in the archive.

Hurricane Ida was the only other hurricane. Its peak of 90 kt, Category 2, came over the Yucatan Channel on 9 November, and it briefly regained hurricane strength near the mouth of the Mississippi River later that day, with a second peak estimated at 75 kt, before cooler shelf water and renewed shear weakened it.

Landfalls and impacts

Hurricane Ida did the most damage. It crossed the Corn Islands and made landfall near Rio Grande on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast on 5 November with 70 kt winds, then spent about 30 hours over the mountains of Nicaragua and Honduras before re-emerging as a depression. Nicaragua's meteorological service reported about 6,000 coastal residents affected, and more than 80 percent of the houses and schools in the village of Karawala were destroyed, but no deaths were reported there. Rain from Ida reached 231 mm at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, and 317.5 mm at Manuel Lazo in western Cuba. Media reports blamed about 120 deaths in El Salvador on Ida, but the NHC attributes those to a separate low off the Pacific coast.

On the northern Gulf Coast, Ida brought tropical storm force winds and surge before becoming extratropical a few hours ahead of moving inland along the Alabama coast on 10 November. Easterly winds piled water into Chandeleur Sound and Lake Borgne, producing the highest surge, 1.99 m at Bay Gardene, Louisiana. Damage there was minor, but the NHC counts one direct death: a 70-year-old man who took his boat onto the Mississippi River to help two men later rescued by the Coast Guard. Ida's remnants then helped build a separate strong extratropical low that battered the East Coast in the following days.

Tropical Storm Claudette was the only tropical cyclone to make landfall in the United States, coming ashore near Fort Walton Beach, Florida, at 0530 UTC on 17 August with 40 kt winds. Its damage was minor, but the NHC counts two direct deaths in the rough surf around Panama City Beach: one man drowned and another went missing and is presumed drowned. Hurricane Bill never landed on the United States yet caused two direct deaths there through large swells: a 7-year-old girl swept from the rocks at Acadia National Park, Maine, where more than 10,000 people had gathered to watch the waves, and a swimmer at New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Tropical Storm Danny's surf drowned a boy near Corolla, North Carolina, one direct death.

Beyond the United States, Hurricane Bill brought tropical storm force winds to Bermuda and knocked out power to tens of thousands of homes in Nova Scotia, with washouts, freshwater flooding and coastal surge damage in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Its swells also flooded parts of the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Tropical Storm Erika produced flooding and mudslides in parts of the northern Leeward Islands and Greater Antilles, and Tropical Storm Grace passed through the Azores with little effect because its small wind field stayed mostly over water between the islands. The NHC did not quantify damage in the United States for any 2009 storm.

Odd places and a forecasting record

Several of 2009's weaker systems formed in unusual places. Tropical Depression One had the northernmost genesis of any known May tropical or subtropical cyclone. Hurricane Fred is one of only two hurricanes on record, with Hurricane Julia of 2010, to reach Category 3 south of 30°N and east of 35°W. Tropical Storm Grace became a tropical storm over the western Azores on 4 October over water of about 21°C, farther northeast than any other Atlantic tropical storm on record, and became extratropical about 200 n mi west-southwest of Cork, Ireland. The NHC cautions that the older record in that part of the ocean is less reliable before satellite classifications began in 1972.

The NHC's official track forecasts set records for accuracy in 2009, with the lowest mean errors ever at 24 to 72 hours and record skill at the same lead times. Intensity forecasts fared less well, with errors mostly larger than the previous five-year average. The names Fred and Ida were used for the first time in 2009, replacing Fabian and Isabel from the 2003 list, and no names were retired afterward, so the list returned unchanged in 2015.