2024 Atlantic hurricane season

Season overview

By the archive's measure the season generated 161.6 units of accumulated cyclone energy, well above the long-term norm and the highest total since 2020. Forecasters had expected a very busy year, pointing to record-warm water across the tropical Atlantic and the fading of the 2023–2024 El Niño toward neutral or La Niña conditions. The ingredients for strong storms were there, and when systems did form over the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico they often intensified quickly.

Activity was far more uneven than those forecasts implied. A stationary heat dome over Mexico and Central America held back the early season in the areas where June storms usually form, and from mid-July to mid-September dry Saharan air, a stable atmosphere, wind shear in the eastern Atlantic and an unfavourable Madden–Julian oscillation phase kept most tropical waves from developing. The equatorial Atlantic also cooled unexpectedly into an Atlantic Niña pattern, running against the assumptions behind the seasonal outlooks.

How the season unfolded

Tropical Storm Alberto opened the season on 19 June in the western Gulf of Mexico, a broad system that came ashore near Tampico, Mexico, the next day. Hurricane Beryl followed at the end of June, forming from a tropical wave in the deep tropics and racing into the Caribbean, while short-lived Tropical Storm Chris crossed onto the Veracruz coast on 1 July. After Beryl dissipated in the second week of July, the basin went silent for more than three weeks.

August brought two hurricanes. Hurricane Debby developed near Cuba and moved into the eastern Gulf, striking the Florida Big Bend on 5 August before stalling over Georgia and the Carolinas. Hurricane Ernesto passed the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico as a tropical storm in mid-August, strengthened to Category 2 and then made landfall on Bermuda as a Category 1 hurricane. Another pause of nearly three weeks followed, unusually long for the climatological peak.

The second half of the season made up for it. Hurricane Francine struck Louisiana on 11 September, and four systems formed in the final week of the month: Helene, Isaac, Joyce and Kirk. Early October added Leslie and Milton, and for a time Kirk, Leslie and Milton were active hurricanes together, the first time three hurricanes had coexisted in the Atlantic after September. Nadine and Oscar formed on the same October day, Patty developed near the Azores at the start of November, and Hurricane Rafael and Tropical Storm Sara closed the year in the western Caribbean, with the last tropical observation on 18 November.

That late run set records. Seven hurricanes formed after 25 September, the most known for that part of the season, and 11 named storms after 23 September tied the 2005 total. Roughly 100 units of accumulated cyclone energy, more than half the season's total, came from 24 September onward.

Strongest storms

Hurricane Milton was the most intense storm of the season and of the whole world in 2024. It formed in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico on 5 October and underwent explosive intensification on 7 October: its central pressure fell from about 977 hPa in the early hours to an estimated 895 hPa by 20:00 UTC, when one-minute winds peaked at 155 kt north of the Yucatán Peninsula. That pressure tied Hurricane Rita of 2005 for the fourth lowest on record in the Atlantic.

Hurricane Beryl, the season's other Category 5, stood out for its timing. It reached Category 4 on 1 July as its eye crossed Carriacou in Grenada and peaked at 145 kt early on 2 July over the southeastern Caribbean, making it the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic. Beryl stayed active for about 11 days in the tropical stage and was the longest-lived storm of the season.

Three more storms became major hurricanes. Hurricane Kirk peaked at 130 kt and 928 hPa on 4 October far out in the central Atlantic and never threatened land while tropical. Hurricane Helene intensified rapidly over the eastern Gulf and reached 120 kt, Category 4, shortly before landfall on 27 September. Hurricane Rafael peaked at 105 kt on 8 November over the Gulf of Mexico, tying Hurricane Kate of 1985 as the strongest November hurricane on record in the Gulf.

Notable landfalls and impacts

Beryl devastated parts of the southern Windward Islands, where the Grenada Meteorological Service reported 99 per cent of buildings on Carriacou damaged or destroyed. It later struck the Yucatán Peninsula near Tulum and made its final landfall near Matagorda, Texas, on 8 July as an 80-kt Category 1 hurricane, crossing the western Houston area. The National Hurricane Center counts 35 direct deaths, in Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, Jamaica and the United States, and 34 indirect deaths in the United States. The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) estimated US property damage at $7.2 billion in 2024 dollars.

Hurricane Helene was the defining disaster of the season. It came ashore about 10 nautical miles southwest of Perry, Florida, around 03:10 UTC on 27 September at Category 4, the strongest landfall on record in the Big Bend, and moved quickly inland. Storm surge, extreme winds and catastrophic freshwater flooding and landslides in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee left at least 250 dead in the United States: 175 direct deaths, 72 indirect and 3 of unknown cause, according to the National Hurricane Center. That makes Helene the deadliest hurricane in the contiguous United States since Katrina in 2005. NCEI estimated its US damage at $78.7 billion, ranking seventh among US hurricanes in 2024 dollars.

Hurricane Milton weakened rapidly on its approach to Florida and made landfall on Siesta Key at 00:30 UTC on 10 October with winds of about 100 kt, still Category 3. It caused 15 direct deaths, 12 in Florida and 3 in Mexico, and 27 indirect deaths in Florida, many of them linked to storm preparations and clean-up. NCEI put US damage at $34.3 billion in 2024 dollars, almost all of it in Florida.

Other landfalls added to the toll. Hurricane Debby's slow crawl through the southeastern United States produced severe flash and river flooding, causing 18 deaths, 12 of them direct, and about $2.5 billion of US damage in 2024 dollars by NCEI's estimate, with further flood losses in Canada. Hurricane Francine struck southeastern Louisiana as a Category 2 with no reported deaths and about $1.3 billion in 2024-dollar losses, according to NCEI. Rafael hit western Cuba at 100 kt on 6 November, knocking out the island's entire electrical grid, and killed 2 people in Jamaica. Late-season rains from Tropical Storm Nadine and Tropical Storm Sara caused deadly floods in Central America and southern Mexico, and the small Hurricane Oscar killed at least 8 people in eastern Cuba.

Three hurricanes struck Florida in one season, Debby, Helene and Milton, which had happened only five times before. Five hurricanes made landfall on the continental United States, tying 1893, 2004 and 2005 for the second-highest total.

Records, names and counting

Hurricane Oscar set a different kind of record. When it passed over Grand Turk on 19 October, satellite radar showed hurricane-force winds reaching only about 5 nautical miles from its centre, the smallest hurricane wind field on record in the Atlantic.

The names Francine, Milton and Sara were used for the first time, having replaced Florence, Michael and Sandy on the rotating lists. In April 2025 the World Meteorological Organization retired Beryl, Helene and Milton because of the deaths and damage they caused, replacing them with Brianna, Holly and Miguel.

The site's count of 18 tropical storms agrees with the National Hurricane Center's total of named storms. The archive also holds a 19th track, the system that became Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight off the Carolinas in mid-September; it brought heavy rain but never acquired tropical characteristics, so it has no tropical-stage peak and is not counted. The site's accumulated cyclone energy of 161.6 units is computed from the archive's tropical-stage observations and differs slightly from the National Hurricane Center's official figure of about 161.5 units.