The latest AP hurricane report says Sara is the third storm of November in the Atlantic, serving as a reminder that the Atlantic hurricane season is not over yet.
Hurricane Sara formed in the western Caribbean Sea before making landfall on the northern coast of Honduras on November 14, bringing heavy rains over the weekend across Central America.
The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said Hurricane Sara could dump up to 40 inches (1,016mm) of rain in some areas. It is forecast to make landfall in Belize on November 17 before dissipating over the Yucatan Peninsula early on November 18.
Before Hurricane Sara, two other storms hit the Atlantic hurricane season in November. Hurricane Patty brought heavy rains to the Azores and dissipated at sea without affecting land. Hurricane Rafael then hit Jamaica and the Cayman Islands before slamming into Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane.
With three storms in November, the final month of the 2024 hurricane season is shaping up to be an unusual one. Forecasters typically see one or two storms in November about once every one to two years.
Hurricane season in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico officially runs from June 1 to November 30.
Although there are storms that form before and after the above timeline, this hurricane season timeframe refers to the months when weather conditions are more favorable for tropical storms and hurricanes to form, such as ocean temperatures reaching at least 26 degrees Celsius to form a storm.
Another factor is wind shear. Levi Silvers, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, said wind shear tends to increase in late fall, making it harder for November storms to form.
From 1991 to 2020, there were typhoons in November every 1 to 2 years. However, in the last month of the typhoon season, typhoons rarely strengthened into hurricanes. Typhoons strengthening into hurricanes in November usually occur once every 2 years.
Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami, USA, pointed out that since 1851, 125 tropical storms have been recorded in November. About half of them, 63 storms, have strengthened into hurricanes and 12 storms have become major hurricanes with winds over 177 km/h.
Hurricane Rafael in early November forced 283,000 people to evacuate in Cuba and destroyed 460 homes. It was the first November hurricane in the Atlantic basin since 2022. One of the November hurricanes of 2022, Hurricane Nicole, became the first November hurricane to make landfall in Florida since 1985.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the only other November hurricanes to hit the United States were in 1861 and 1935.
Since 1953, there have been seven November storms so destructive they were removed from the list, said hurricane expert McNoldy. The most recent were Hurricanes Eta and Iota, Category 4 hurricanes that hit Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast within two weeks of each other in November 2020. The back-to-back storms killed 239 people and caused $8.2 billion in damage across Central America.
Other November storms during the Atlantic hurricane season that were so destructive they had to be delisted included Otto in 2016, Paloma in 2008, Noel in 2007, Michelle in 2001 and Lenny in 1999, according to McNoldy.
