Since 2003 just before or at the start of the Atlantic Hurricane season I release my city predictions with areas I feel have a high to moderate risk of being impacted. Once again this past 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season I accurately predicted 3 of my top 5 locations to be impacted by a named storm or hurricane. Of the remaining 15 locations 12 were impacted ,11 of these locations were impacted by hurricanes. Even if I was not the one making these predictions I would sit up in my chair and pay very close attention. Since 2003 I have only had 2 seasons where none of my top 5 were impacted by a named storm,even in a couple of seasons of less than 14 named storms I have hit on at least 1 of my top 5. For example in 2009 we ended with 9 named storms I still had 2 of my top 5 impacted. The beauty of these predictions are that I use sometimes up to 8 different criteria to choose my top 20. For example this past season one of my criteria is ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) in where model projections in April indicated a higher chance of a low to moderate El Nino (warm phase of the southern Oscillation) during the height of the hurricane season. I released my predictions on May 15th based on a weak El Nino which never happened but was also involved in only 2 of the 8 criteria. The other criteria had little to do with the amount of named storms rather return rates and environmental conditions such as the NAO (North Atlantic oscillation).

On September 10th Hurricane Irma hit the lower Florida keys with 130mph winds , my #3 pick this year was Marathon,Florida . This location made my top 5 for the 2017 season based on only 1 of my 8 criteria . Since 1990 Marathon has been impacted when there is an above average NAO in April an amazing 8 times, now i’m just a stats guy that will leave that science to the PHD experts. Marathon was also statistically 2 years overdue for a named storm and 10 years for a hurricane.

Sometimes when viewing these predictions it can be just as useful to see who is not listed. Some very high hit locations that are impacted just about every other year such as Cape Hatteras and the N.W Bahamas were not chosen and had minimal impacts during the 2017 season. Some years there are hard hit areas that I do not pick but this year it was different. Even Ponce,Puerto Rico hit by Hurricane Maria was my #14 pick and those that have followed my predictions closely know I do not pick Puerto Rico locations very often. Gulf Shores,Alabama my #2 pick impacted by Hurricane Nate was chosen because they usually get hit in more active seasons and the chart above shows 13.66 named storms the closest to our final 17. I like using the variation of different criteria as sort of a fail safe scheme but honestly the most important factor are return rates. I do not pick Texas locations that frequently but this year I narrowed it down to Port O’Connor,Texas at #12 that was just missed dead on by Hurricane Harvey as it hit Aransas Pass with 130 mph winds.

What a hurricane season it has been with three major hurricanes hitting land in the Atlantic basin starting with Harvey then Irma and finishing with Maria all within 27 days during the height of the season. Each Hurricane was devastating to the communities affected and it is extremely difficult to rank these three. Each impacted large areas,killed many and crippled infrastructures. Now what does rank mean? I will rank these three hurricanes based on impacts on human lives. I will give descriptions of each of the three hurricanes in order in which they developed (stats may not be exact as these are ongoing disasters). It all started with a tropical depression east of the Windward Islands on August 17th and like it’s predecessors early in the season struggled to survive due to unfavorable conditions aloft. The system weakened to an open wave in the central Caribbean, traveled west crossing the Yucatan Peninsula in the western Caribbean where if finally found a favorable position with low shear and very warm sea surface temperatures. On August 24th it developed into Tropical Storm Harvey in the Bay of Campeche and at this point the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season took a turn for the worst. In less than nine hours Harvey would become a hurricane setting the stage for several powerful hurricanes in less than a month.
Hurricane Harvey rapidly intensified to 130 mph as it made it’s way onshore just north Of Corpus Christi,Texas late on August 25th. The wind damage was extensive in Rockport and surrounding communities in Texas but this was just the beginning of what would be a deadly flooding situation in the Houston area over to Port Arthur,TX and western Louisiana. For the next five days Harvey would force nearly 40,000 residents from their homes after dumping over 50″ of rain in some locations as Harvey flooded over 100,000 homes. Costliest of big three est 180 Billion in damage

Less than a week later Tropical Storm Irma forms west of the Cabo Verde Islands and once again becomes a hurricane in less than 24 hrs. On September 6th the eye of Hurricane Irma passed over the tiny island of Barbuda with 185mph winds causing complete devastation and leaving the island uninhabitable. Next up would be the islands of St Martin/Sint Maarten , Anguilla, Saint Barthelemy , St. Kitts and Nevis , St. Eustatius all with extremely heavy damage by the same 185mph winds. Next would be the Virgin Islands of St Thomas and St John 185mph direct hit same results with extreme damage. Irma would pass just north of Puerto Rico causing quite a bit of damage and left residents feeling like they dodged a bullet ,little did they know what was coming next. Hurricane Irma weakened slightly to 165mph while passing just north of Great Inagua Bahamas causing heavy damage but sparing the island of Irma’s worst winds. On September 9th Hurricane Irma raked 250 miles of the north coast of Cuba entering west of Nuevitas regaining cat 5 status and exiting well east of Havana with 120mph winds taking ten lives before turning towards the Florida Keys. On September 10th Hurricane Irma hit the lower keys with 130mph winds while turning NNW causing very heavy damage from Big Pine Key to Islamorada est one in three structures heavily damaged. That same evening of Sept 10th Irma made it’s final landfall in Naples with 110mph winds causing heavy damage to weaker structures such as mobile homes. Irma continued weakening while moving up Florida’s west coast causing hurricane force wind gust’s over nearly the entire peninsula causing the largest power outages in Florida’s history affecting over 6 million customers . Up in Georgia Tropical Storm Irma caused trees to topple and left of 1 Million without power. In South Carolina coastal flooding in some areas was worse than reported from Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Most intense winds of big three 185 mph in Barbuda,St Martin/Maarten,Anguilla,Saint Barthelemy,St. Kitts and Nevis , St. Eustatius,St John,St Thomas.

Once again less than a week later on September 16th a tropical depression formed east of the Lesser Antilles. Once again in less than 24 hrs hurricane Maria is born and within 48 hrs Maria becomes major. On the evening of September 18th Hurricane Maria hits the tiny island nation of Dominica with 160 mph winds a category five. The island was devastated and when all finished Maria left 27 dead. Next up would be the island of St Croix where Hurricane Maria was at it’s strongest with 175mph winds while passing just south. The damage here was reported as worse than what happened in 1989s Hurricane Hugo leaving the entire island without power. Next up would be Puerto Rico as Hurricane Maria approached from the S.E on Sept 20th with 155 mph winds and crossing the entire island as a major hurricane. The entire island was hit extremely hard knocking out the entire power structure and killing 51 although those numbers are in dispute ,some say up to 500 were killed. As of this post this outage has caused a loss of 2.5 billion hours of electricity supply making it the largest black out in U.S History. Lowest pressure of the big three upon passage St Croix 910 MB.

So now that we have a general idea of what happened in these affected areas let me state that there are not enough words to adequately describe how much these three hurricanes impacted peoples lives. The common sense answer would be all three are equal in how bad they were, but for arguments sake I will take a shot at which was the worst.

#1 worst Even though Hurricane Irma scored the most highs amongst the three according to the chart above I cannot escape the thought of having the majority of the power grid off line for nearly 2 months as is the case in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria. Dominica and St Croix also have gone for an extended period of time with limited electricty or potable water. All three of these areas will be lucky if the vast majority of residents have all services back up by Christmas. Even cell connectivity is limited in many areas,talk about frustration. Based on between 700,000 & 800,000 housing units not having basic needs makes Hurricane Maria the worst.


2nd worst Maria was known mainly for wind destruction but Hurricane Harvey was known more for flooding in so many areas it’s hard to imagine. Harvey was also a wind machine at landfall in Texas destroying many structures. Harvey took 84 lives mainly due to flooding after it lost hurricane status. Up to 15,500 homes were destroyed with estimates of over 200,000 damaged in the entire impacted area from South Texas to Louisiana. Even though less people were impacted by Hurricane Harvey than Irma the amount of time people have had to deal with re construction and mental anguish puts Hurricane harvey at #2.


3rd worst Even though Hurricane Irma impacted more people probably than the other two combined you can only look at the amount of time the majority of the over 25 million had utilities. The majority of outages in Florida were restored within 1 week and the total 8.7 million that lost power in the S.E United States was 99% restored within 14 days. There were some outages with cell towers but within a week most of that was restored. There was heavy damage in the Florida Keys but they are far better off than the Maria stricken areas. Unfortunately areas of Cuba,Virgin Islands (also impacted by Maria) and the N.E Lesser Antilles especially the island of Barbuda may take years to recover but population wise much less than Maria. Had the peninsula of Florida been hit by the same Irma that hit Cuba and the Lesser Antilles it probably would have been #1.

By Jim Williams 2/21/17 ……Climate change or as I like to call it “Global warming” is trending more ominous for the future of our earth. The sea level rise threat is growing and we are seeing weather extremes on the increase world wide. When it comes to hurricanes there are differing opinions from increased wind shear keeping storms weaker in contrast to storms being bigger and stronger. According to Dr. Ryan N. Maue of Weatherbell Global accumulated cyclone energy values were up just slightly from the sum average in 2016 and the same goes for the Atlantic Basin.

The next question is are we going to see more hurricanes as a result of global warming? The National Hurricane Center’s (HURDAT2) database over the years has actually added named storms that were previously unknown mostly out over the open waters. Despite the additions it does appear that the over all count is slightly increasing especially majors in the Atlantic basin especially since 1995.

Probably the most difficult question is when did global warming start? CO2 as well as increased Methane have been on the rise since according to historic ice core samples but have really taken off since the 1950s. A really handy tool to use can be found on NOAA’s National centers for environmental information where you can choose your state or region to see how temperatures have increased since 1895. After choosing the Atlantic coastal states one by one I have come to the conclusion that temps have steadily increased since 1975 using the month of most hurricane activity in the basin September. The graph below shows both land & sea temps in September globally on the increase so how will the tropics respond in the Atlantic basin?

The most important question is how many named storms will make landfall impacting lives of some people who otherwise could care less about global warming. This is where I like to take the statistics a step further by taking my 152 locations in the HC city Database down to the city level or looking through a microscope. For arguments sake I will use the year 1975 as the (start) of global warming in reference to examining land falling systems in the Atlantic basin. I am using six spread out locations vulnerable to hurricanes to make my point. Data includes all tropical storms, Hurricanes brushes and hits (inc extrop). Starting with Galveston,Texas from 1871 to 1974 had an average return rate of every 2.73 years for a named storm. From 1975 to 2016 unchanged at 2.73.

By Jim Williams Oct 1st,2016

Hurricane Matthew exceeded forecast expectations and became a category 5 hurricane last night in the eastern Caribbean despite some wind shear of 20 to 25 kts from the southwest.

This morning the wind shear continues and Matthew may be weakening slightly as a result.
and here is Matthew 7 hrs later with no visible eye. .
Matthew has already caused some damage in the Windward Islands when it became a tropical storm on the 28th. Inside the yellow circle would indicate tropical storm conditions as a hit in the hurricanecity database.
So now who is next in line to feel the wrath of Hurricane Matthew? It’s been four years since hurricane Sandy hit Kingston Jamaica damaging thousands of homes & causing 100 million (USD) damage , killing one. The models pretty much nailed the track to Jamaica when Sandy was as far south as Matthew as seen here. As of this morning most models show either a hit on east Jamaica or passing just east of the island. The ECMWF model or as I like to call it the “European crystal ball medium range forecast” has this close if not over the Haitian peninsula before heading into the Bahamas.Of course this track changes from run to run as do the other models but we look for trends. Once these systems become major they carry a lot of energy as we have seen in the past with Sandy and Ike bringing huge surges on landfall’s long after being major. The land masses out in front of Matthew regardless of intensity should experience high storm surge and winds for south shores of Jamaica, east Cuba and Haiti on Monday /Tuesday. After that the Bahama islands some of which were hit by Hurricane Joaquin as a cat 3 last year may see a repeat or maybe the N.W Bahamas as the GFS model is showing. Finally the U.S impacts are not yet clear but Matthew could come very close to Florida the S.E and possibly mid Atlantic states but the EURO keeps it further away subject to change. Right now my focus is on the Greater Antilles and Bahamas facing a major threat with millions in harms way.

By Jim Williams August 20th, 2016

As of this post we have invest 99L in the east Atlantic with many models showing a threat to the United States down the road. Some models show an open wave others a hurricane but regardless social networks are buzzing with what could be. You see I have been tracking and commenting online since the late 90s with hurricanecity.com and even back then the forecast’s would run rampant on forums, chat rooms and live shows but as far as I know no one has died as a result. Now the tools to provide an opinion are everywhere mainly from Twitter and Facebook where you sign up and you have a platform for anyone to see. I have mixed feelings on social networks especially with the political climate we are in, is too much information or wrong information molding one’s decisions? As a hurricane tracking enthusiast I see some post’s that make me cringe like a 16 day GFS run showing a hurricane hitting Florida but lets face it the model information is out there for all to gather and post. I have observed many people I follow usually say “this is for entertainment purposes only” or “long range models are horrible” but others say nothing. If you are the first to post the 16 day GFS you get clicks, re tweets and followers because people love a crystal ball predicting their worst nightmare or wanted hurricane hit. Now the question is what can be done about it? or should anything be done about it? simple answer NO. Lets go back to pre long range models and a family has a vacation planned and does not have any idea a threat is possible in 2 weeks leaving home vulnerable or heading to the threat zone. You see most on camera TV mets will not touch a two week model showing their local market as a hit or show one on twitter so when an amateur forecaster/tracker shows it at least they have a clue. Others like The Weather Channel’s Marshall Shepard host of WX geeks makes it clear he is not a fan of weather enthusiast’s posting data that puts “lives at stake” and says there needs to be accountability, in this promo video for posting models are you kidding me?


Time to remind as tropical activity in Atlantic picks up....BEWARE of Social Media-rologists....just because posted doesn't mean credible

— Marshall Shepherd (@DrShepherd2013) August 20, 2016

Is the combination of social media fueling a surge of bad science? #accountability #WXGeeks https://t.co/CexVAPQpkt pic.twitter.com/t8xeITHV5Y

— WXGeeksTWC (@WXGeeksTWC) August 20, 2016

So what if they are not accountable? are we going to call the internet police, are we going to ban accounts? Another assumption that drives me crazy is that somehow this is putting peoples lives in danger without any example to show a weather death related to a tweet about a two week model. Listen I love the weather channel grew up with it watching some of the first on air forecast’s, I have had Dr Jeff Masters on my previous shows, love WUTV. You will never see Jeff Masters attack the amateur weather community as weather fans and amateur forecasters make weatherunderground what it is today regardless of whether they posted long range models or not. I have watched several WXgeek shows with some good guest’s but mostly omitting amateurs/hobbyist’s from the shows with subtle comments of “watch out for those reckless amateur’s” as pro mets agree with him is not a good look for The Weather Channel . I have been on the internet since the mid 1990s and have seen a lot of good material produced by amateurs and even used by the pros . So my advice to Dr Shepard embrace the hobbyist’s you may actually learn a thing or two from them, let them post to their hearts desires and at the end of the day let the Weather Channel provide the facts.

August 7th,11:30AM ET as of yesterday nearly 90% of the country’s power has been restored in the aftermath of Hurricane Earl. The category one hurricane with 80mph winds came ashore near Belize City in the early morning hours of August 4th bringing with it surge & destruction.