Tuesday marks the end of the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season, which started on June 1.
鈥淚t was an active season,鈥� said Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had 21 named storms. Usually, it鈥檚 in the lower teens on average and seven of those made it to hurricane status, with four major hurricanes. For the most part it stayed away from the United States, except unfortunately for Hurricane Ida which slammed into Louisiana.鈥�
That鈥檚 in line with the released in August. It said there would be 15 to 21 named storms, 7 to 10 hurricanes, and three to five major hurricanes.
But, even though are considered a busy season, that鈥檚 still not as many as last year.
鈥淭here were 30 named storms last year so that broke the record,鈥� said Dan Reilly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Houston. 鈥�2005 was fairly close to 2020. That was the only season that was anywhere near what we saw last year. 2005 had Rita, Katrina, and other storms, and there were actually more hurricanes in 2005 than 2020. But, in terms of the number of named storms, 2020 broke the record.鈥�
In 2005, there were 28 storms. That makes the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season the third most active on record. Reilly called it 鈥渞emarkable鈥� to have two back-to-back active hurricane seasons.
He said the most powerful named storm of this year鈥檚 season was Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana in late August. The only storm to impact Texas was Nicholas, a Category 1 hurricane that hit the coast in mid-September along the eastern part of the Matagorda Peninsula.
Nicholas later weakened to a tropical storm and ended up.
鈥淓ven though Nicholas produced a lot of wind and power outages, it was a tropical storm as it moved through the Houston area. So in some ways Houston dodged a bullet again in that we didn鈥檛 get a stronger hurricane and get a more direct hit,鈥� said Reilly, who added it could have been worse for Texas.
He said while coastal communities like Lake Jackson and Sargent were hard hit, 鈥淎ll in all we were spared this year.鈥�
While the official end to hurricane season is Nov. 30, Reilly said it鈥檚 always a possibility that there could be additional storms in December, though it鈥檚 rare.
