Category5Kaiju wrote:After the events that just transpired, nothing will surprise me anymore. The Gulf of Mexico in recent years has been the cradle of devastating storms that intensify up until landfall, and it is insane that we have had Harvey, Michael, Laura, and Ida all occur within only 5 years (all of which were Cat 4 or higher with landfalling pressures less than 940 mbar). Heck, I will include Zeta too despite it being a Cat 3. At this point I would not be shocked if later this season we see another Cat 4 or higher CONUS landfall in the Gulf, and I also would not be surprised to see something like this occur in 2022 or 2023...again.
It's crazy to think how quiet the GoM was from 2011-2016 compared to the years before and after that time. From 2011-2016, not one storm in the Gulf of Mexico exceeded Category 1 intensity. 2014 and 2015 had no hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico at all. The only hurricanes from 2011-2016 were: Nate 2011 (which was operationally a TS), Isaac 2012, Ingrid 2013 and Hermine 2016.
2017-21 has been a much different (and more active) time than 2011-16 in the GoM. Since 2017, there have been 8 major hurricanes to form in or enter the Gulf of Mexico: Harvey, Irma, Michael, Laura, Delta, Zeta, Grace and Ida. For non-major hurricanes during that time, there has been Franklin, Katia, Nate, Barry, Hanna, Marco, Sally, Eta, and Elsa. It truly is remarkable how active the Gulf of Mexico has been since 2017, and 2018 (aside from Michael) and 2019 didn't even have too much activity there.
