What are the Latest Dates Hurricanes Have Struck South Florida?

The Atlantic remains quiet into next week

Enhanced satellite picture of Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005, about an hour after landfall near Marco Island on Florida’s southwest coast. Wilma is the second-latest calendar date hurricane on record to strike South Florida. Credit: NOAA.

By late October, Hurricane Season is a little long in the tooth, but as we discussed in Monday’s newsletter, historically about 10 percent of tropical activity remains. Practically speaking, this means we’d expect another one to two named storms in the Atlantic before the season officially closes at end of November. While history says one of those could become a hurricane, the odds of a hurricane forming into November quickly dwindle. If the season does manage to eke out another hurricane, would we ever expect a hurricane threat to South Florida in late October or November?

Hurricanes have struck South Florida this late in the hurricane season, but only a handful of times in the 171-year period of record. The last time a hurricane hit our area in late October was Hurricane Wilma back in 2005, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on October 24th just south of Marco Island. Prior to Wilma, you have to go all the way back to 1935 to find a hurricane that struck South Florida after October 19th, when an unusually strong Category 2 hurricane moving from the northeast hit Miami Beach (near present-day Bal Harbour) on November 4th. The Yankee hurricane of 1935, as it became known later, is the latest calendar date hurricane on record to have hit South Florida.

We’re certainly not expecting any hurricanes in the week ahead in the Atlantic. As we covered yesterday, wind shear continues to plague the basin. With the progression of cold fronts and still warm water offshore, we always keep an eye to low pressure riding along lingering fronts, but for now we don’t see any threats. Models show an area of low pressure in association with a washed out front early next week north of the Bahamas, but analyses indicate it won’t take on tropical characteristics as it drifts northward toward the Carolinas.