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2020 Hurricane Season comes to a close

By on November 30, 2020

Jacintoville, TOLEDO. Monday, November 30, 2020. The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season comes to an end today; and it is not a day too soon.

Hurricane activity, 2020

Hurricane activity for 2020, well above-average. [Photo courtesy CNN]

This has truly been one for the record books, adding to the global upheaval brought on by COVID-19.

Back in April of this year, forecasters first raised the red flag, predicting 2020 to be a busy Hurricane Season.

And they were right on target with their forecasts for an above-average Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Forecasters predicted between 16 and 19 named storms this year.

2020, however, threw everyone a curve ball, churning out a record 30 names storms, so much so that the Greek alphabet had to be used to name storms this year.

The record-setting year got off to a raging start a full two weeks before the official June 1 opening of the Hurricane Season when Tropical Storm Arthur formed on May 14, 2020.

For us in Belize, it was Hurricane Nana that made a direct landfall; but thankfully with minimal impact.

Strangely enough, it was the storms that skirted the country that caused the most damage, those being Hurricanes Eta and Iota which struck virtually the same parts of Nicaragua within 13 days of each other and drenched Central America with copious amounts of rainfall.

There were six storms that reached Major status on the Safir Simpson Hurricane scale this year, meaning they carried maximum sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour of Category 3 and above. Those were Hurricanes Laura, Teddy, Delta, Epsilon, Eta and Iota.

This year every month of the Hurricane Season had a storm churning in the tropical Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean Sea. So the official closure of the 2020 Hurricane Season brings a great sigh of relief.

Now, at least for the next 6 months we can concentrate our efforts on the next pressing issue that is wreaking havoc on our country: the dreaded COVID-19.

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