What Hurricanes? Florida Shrugs Off a Frenetic 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season – With One Exception

 Jonathan Erdman

Published: October 8, 2020

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is setting a record for United States landfalls but has largely spared Florida, with one exception.

Hurricane Delta will be the 10th named storm to landfall in the mainland U.S. in 2020, breaking a record that has stood since 1916, according to Phil Klotzbach, a tropical scientist at Colorado State University.

Incredibly, not one of those landfalls occurred in Florida.

Tracks of the nine U.S. landfalls so far in 2020 prior to Hurricane Delta, and areas that have been in hurricane (purple) and tropical storm (red) warnings so far.

There is an asterisk to that, however.

Hurricane Sally hammered the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama in mid-September with up to 30 inches of rain, wind gusts up to 121 mph and storm surge flooding.

Technically speaking, though, Sally's landfall – the location in which the center of a tropical storm or hurricane crosses land – occurred just across the border near Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Sally's Landfall

It also moved across South Florida, but as Tropical Depression Nineteen. It didn't become Sally until it moved offshore just south of Naples, Florida.

Florida only had two other brushes this season from storms that later made U.S. landfalls elsewhere.

Tropical storm warnings in the Lower and Middle Keys were later dropped as Tropical Storm Laura tracked over or south of western Cuba in late August.

And while the Atlantic coast of Florida was under hurricane warnings, Tropical Storm Isaias only brushed the coast with some modest wind and rain while its center remained safely offshore in early August.

Florida's Upper Keys and the west coast of Florida, east of Apalachicola, are the only parts of the East or Gulf coasts that have yet to be placed under a tropical storm or hurricane warning so far this season.

When considering warnings issued inland, even parts of western Maine have been in a tropical storm warning this season before the west coast of Florida.

By contrast, Delta will be the fourth named storm to landfall in Louisiana in 2020, tying a season record for the state, according to Klotzbach.

Of course, this doesn't mean the Sunshine State is completely off the hook the rest of this season.

October is the month with the most hurricane hits in South Florida, according to NOAA's Best Track database.

(MORE: What the Busiest Seasons Have Delivered in October)

Recent Seasons: All or Nothing

In recent years, Florida has had frenetic hurricane seasons, but also some long hurricane dry spells.

Hurricane Irma in 2017 sliced up the Florida Peninsula from the Keys northward. That was followed one year later by Category 5 Hurricane Michael's devastation in the Panhandle.

In 2004, Florida was struck by four hurricanes – Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne – three of which passed through Polk County in central Florida.

Tracks of the four hurricanes that impacted Florida in 2004.

Three more hurricanes – Dennis, Katrina and Wilma – made landfall in Florida in 2005. Another one, Rita, brushed the Florida Keys.

But after Wilma, it would be almost 11 years before the next hurricane – Hermine – would make a Florida landfall, a record hurricane drought for the Sunshine State.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.