Tropical Holiday: No Atlantic Storms This July 4th. How Unusual Is It?

As a Hurricane Specialist, it’s probably no surprise that summer is my favorite season. Don’t get me wrong, I love the South Florida dry season, but it’s tough to beat the long, lazy, hazy days of summer. Then right in the midst of summer, when the days are longest and the air is warmest, hits the Fourth of July. For a summer enthusiast, the Fourth is like a perfect meal at your favorite restaurant, when all the ingredients come together – time outdoors, cookouts, extended daylight, nationwide celebrations – for a great time. Of course, even for the summer-oriented, at the coast, the perfect summer meal can be spoiled by an errant storm during Hurricane Season.

Today, thankfully, the tropics are on holiday with America, with not a single storm in sight clear across the Atlantic. How unusual is this?

As it turns out, it’s more common to see an empty Atlantic on July Fourth than one with a tropical depression, storm, or hurricane. Over the past 60 years, only about one in five years has recorded a tropical cyclone in the Atlantic. In fact, since the 1960s, while 15 years have observed a tropical system of some kind (tropical depression, tropical storm, or hurricane) on July 4th, only four of those years recorded tropical storms, and only two recorded hurricanes (Arthur in 2014 and Alice in 1973). Amazingly, in the record books, only one Atlantic hurricane made landfall on July 4th – Arthur in 2014, which struck along the Outer Banks of North Carolina as a Category 2 hurricane. With its peak winds of 100 mph at landfall, Arthur in 2014 is also tied for the strongest Atlantic hurricane recorded on the Fourth of July (tied with the Great 1916 Gulf Coast Hurricane as it was still over water on July 4, 1916).

If you’re concerned about a hurricane ruining your holiday, look no further than Labor Day. Labor Day falls on the first Monday of September, when your odds are five to six times higher of seeing a tropical depression, tropical storm, or hurricane across the Atlantic than it is on the Fourth of July. Some of the strongest hurricanes in recorded history have occurred on or around Labor Day, including of course, the Great 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which struck just south of Islamorada in the Florida Keys, one of only four Category 5 hurricanes to strike the continental U.S. and still the recordholder for the lowest surface pressure ever recorded on land at 892 mb, or 26.35 in of mercury.

So get out and enjoy the holiday if you’re one of the many to have the day off. For those of us in southeast Florida, the beach forecast looks mostly sunny, but mind the red flags, as the rip current risk will be high today because of a strong onshore flow. Meanwhile, the tropics will likely stay on extended holiday, at least through the workweek.