2023 Atlantic hurricane season

A busy year despite El Niño

Twenty named storms put 2023 among the busiest Atlantic seasons on record, tied for fourth with 1933 and well above the 1991 to 2020 average of 14. The seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes matched the long-term norm exactly, and accumulated cyclone energy, which combines storm strength and duration, came to 148.2, roughly a fifth above average.

The season unfolded under a strong El Niño, which usually suppresses Atlantic activity through stronger upper-level winds. Record-warm sea surface temperatures across the Atlantic largely offset that effect, and 2023 produced more storms than any other El Niño year in the record. El Niño still left its mark: enhanced wind shear held many storms back from strengthening, and a weakened, eastward-shifted Bermuda High let systems turn north or drift over the open ocean instead of being steered west toward the United States, Mexico and Central America. Only three systems made landfall in the United States.

The site's count of 20 tropical storms includes a January storm that the National Hurricane Center identified only after the fact as subtropical and left unnamed, because season counts include subtropical-stage winds of 34 kt or more. The National Hurricane Center and Wikipedia also list 20 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes from the best track, so the headline figures agree. The archive tracks 22 systems in all: the extra two are Tropical Depression Twenty-One, which never reached storm strength, and Potential Tropical Cyclone Twenty-Two, a November disturbance that never became a tropical cyclone.

An early start, then a late-August surge

The year opened in mid-January, when a low over the Gulf Stream off the eastern United States gained hybrid characteristics and became a short-lived subtropical storm on 16 January. It raced northeast and came ashore on the far northeastern coast of Nova Scotia just before losing its subtropical structure. Forecasters had treated it as non-tropical at the time, and the storm was added to the record in a post-season review.

Tropical Storm Arlene formed in the Gulf of Mexico at the start of June and took an unusual southward track, staying offshore. Later that month Tropical Storm Bret and Tropical Storm Cindy developed from successive tropical waves in the deep tropical Atlantic, the first time two tropical storms had formed there in June and the first time since 1968 that two Atlantic storms were active at once in that month. Hurricane Don began as a subtropical storm in the central Atlantic in mid-July, became tropical and meandered far from land, reaching hurricane strength on 22 July as the season's first hurricane.

After a quiet stretch, the pace changed abruptly in late August. Four storms formed between 19 and 21 August: Emily, Franklin, Gert and Harold. Idalia followed in the northwestern Caribbean on 26 August and Jose in the open Atlantic on 29 August, and at one point Idalia, Franklin and the depression that became Jose were spinning at the same time. Gert weakened to a remnant low and later regenerated, and Tropical Storm Katia formed off Cabo Verde on 1 September.

September kept the burst going. Hurricane Lee, Hurricane Margot and Hurricane Nigel all formed in the central and eastern Atlantic in the first half of the month and stayed well out to sea as hurricanes. On 22 September Tropical Storm Ophelia developed off North Carolina, and the next day Tropical Storm Philippe formed in the eastern tropical Atlantic, followed by Tropical Storm Rina, whose closeness to Philippe let the two influence each other's movement.

October was quieter. Tropical Storm Sean formed in the eastern tropical Atlantic on 11 October, Hurricane Tammy developed a week later, and short-lived Tropical Depression Twenty-One moved into Nicaragua. The season effectively ended when Tammy lost its tropical character at the end of the month; no tropical cyclone formed in November.

Lee, Franklin and Idalia

Hurricane Lee was the season's strongest storm. It formed from a tropical wave on 5 September, became a hurricane within a day and a major hurricane within two, then intensified explosively over very warm water, gaining about 70 kt in 24 hours. Lee peaked at 145 kt, Category 5, at 06:00 UTC on 8 September several hundred miles east of the Leeward Islands, with a minimum pressure of 926 hPa. Increasing shear weakened it quickly, but it reintensified to a second peak of 105 kt on 11 September and grew very large as it passed between Puerto Rico and Bermuda.

Hurricane Franklin matched Lee's lowest pressure of 926 hPa and peaked at 130 kt, Category 4, on 29 August over the southwestern Atlantic after an unusual track out of the Caribbean. It is also the longest-lived system in the site's record for the year, because the site measures the whole merged track, including Franklin's long extratropical stage. Counted by time as a tropical cyclone, the longest-lasting storm was Tropical Storm Philippe, which kept its tropical status from 23 September to 6 October.

Hurricane Idalia, the third major hurricane, intensified rapidly over the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current and peaked at 115 kt, Category 4, early on 30 August. Tammy was the strongest of the other hurricanes at 95 kt, just short of major hurricane strength, while Nigel peaked at 85 kt, Margot at 80 kt and Don at 65 kt.

Landfalls and impacts

Idalia was the season's most destructive storm. It weakened slightly before landfall near Keaton Beach in Florida's Big Bend at about 11:45 UTC on 30 August with winds of 100 kt, Category 3, the third-strongest landfalling hurricane in modern records for that region. Storm surge of 8 to 12 ft inundated the coast of Taylor and Dixie Counties, and wind damaged crops, buildings and infrastructure across the largely rural region before Idalia crossed Georgia and the Carolinas. The National Hurricane Center's revised report lists 12 deaths in the United States, 9 direct and 3 indirect, and NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information estimated damage at $3.6 billion in 2023 US dollars.

Tropical Storm Harold made landfall on Padre Island in South Texas on 22 August at 50 kt, causing minor damage and no direct deaths. Hurricane Franklin crossed the Dominican Republic as a poorly organized tropical storm on 23 August; the country's meteorological service reported three direct deaths, and media reports put damage there at about $90 million in 2023 US dollars. Franklin later brought tropical-storm conditions to Bermuda, with minor impacts.

Lee never struck land as a hurricane, but its large swells were deadly: the National Hurricane Center counted four direct deaths in the United States and Puerto Rico, three of them tied to rough seas and rip currents. Lee became extratropical on 16 September and came ashore in southwestern Nova Scotia that day with winds of about 55 kt, cutting power to around 200,000 customers in the United States, mostly in coastal Maine, with similar numbers in Nova Scotia. With no official estimate available, the firm Aon put total damage at $50 million.

Tropical Storm Ophelia made landfall near Emerald Isle, North Carolina, on 23 September at 60 kt, just short of hurricane strength. It brought storm surge, flash flooding and power cuts from eastern North Carolina to New Jersey but caused no reported deaths or injuries; the National Centers for Environmental Information estimated damage at about $450 million in the United States.

In the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Bret reached St. Vincent on 23 June at 55 kt, downing trees and power lines without reported deaths. Barbuda was struck twice in October: Tropical Storm Philippe passed directly over the island on 2 October, bringing heavy rain to the Leeward Islands, and Hurricane Tammy made landfall there on 22 October at 80 kt, Category 1, with no reported deaths or serious injuries. Tropical Depression Twenty-One came ashore in southern Nicaragua on 24 October.

Records and context

The site's record for the year runs from 15 January to 18 November. The final entry is Potential Tropical Cyclone Twenty-Two, a Caribbean disturbance that the National Hurricane Center issued advisories for in mid-November but which never developed a well-defined center or tropical-storm-force winds. Its moisture, together with an approaching upper-level trough, still caused deadly flooding: the center's report lists 24 deaths on Hispaniola on 18 and 19 November.

The 2023 name list reused the 2017 list with four new names, Harold, Idalia, Margot and Nigel, replacing the retired Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate, and all four were used for the first time. For the first time since 2014, no Atlantic names were retired afterward, so the list returns in 2029. The season also saw NOAA launch a Black Swift drone into a hurricane for the first time, sending it into Tammy.