Why Are There More Hurricanes This Year Near Big Bend?

There have been about 90 total known tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes that have gone through the Big Bend Florida area, centered near Perry, Florida — around 24 hurricanes from the mid 1800s until today (2024 hurricane season). In the past 20 years, there have been 5 hurricanes over the area, including Helene and August’s Debby: Idalia (2023), Irma (2017), and Hermine (2016).  See the interactive Historical Hurricane Tracks here, where you can list a specific town and see which storms tracked over it.

 

There are additional hurricanes that went through the Big Bend area, but as you cannot search by informal region on the mapping, you’ll need to center the map around a city or town, which may reduce the true number of hurricanes that went through the area.

 

2024’s hurricanes have yet to be added to the map, but I expect they’ll be added at the end of the hurricane season.

 

As the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean continue warming due to rising levels of greenhouse gases (and combine with natural cycles like El Nino Southern Oscillation, among other global air and water circulations), climate models predict more intense hurricanes in these warm waters, especially with increased heavy flooding on coastal regions as sea ice continues to melt. This is exactly what we are seeing now – even the simpler climate models 20-30 years ago predicted much heavier rainfall with climate change (human-induced and natural forces combined).

 

For more information about hurricanes in the past, please see the National Hurricane Center (NHC) climate page.

 

I also recommend Hurricanes in a Changing Climate for more about hurricanes, their average frequency, and the increase in heavy rain and flooding. It is a little outdated on the data, but overall, it is helpful conceptually. To better understand expert hurricane forecaster predictions, check out 2024’s forecast from May 2024.