History of US Hurricanes

History 1949 - 1999.

• Between 1949 to 1999, 302 hurricanes formed in the Atlantic Basin.
  
  
• 78 made landfall in the continental United States, and 31 of those were "intense".
  
  
• On average; about six Atlantic Basin hurricanes occurred each year; 26% made landfall in the United States ; 40% of the hurricanes that made landfall were intense.
  
  
• During these years, the annual number of Atlantic Basin hurricanes has been as low as two and as high as twelve.
  
  
• The percentage making landfall in the United States in a single year has been as low as zero and as high as 86%, in 1985, when six out of seven storms made landfall.
  
  
• From 1949 to 1999, catastrophic hurricanes in the United States; including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands  caused direct insured property losses totalling $37.9 billion — or an average of $743 million per year.
  
  
• In fourteen of the years from 1949 to 1999, insurers incurred no losses from catastrophic hurricanes, and losses in one year (1992) were as high as $17.1 billion.

More Recent History

• The drivers for the increased frequency and intensity of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean Basin, as observed since 1995, include sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic and associated changes in atmospheric circulation.
  
  
• Warmer sea temperatures are likely to translate into high activity, leading to a greater potential for hurricanes to make landfall at higher intensities.
  
  
• A forward-looking view of risk should reflect a higher probability of land-falling hurricanes than is represented by the 1949-99 long-term historical averages.