Maximally active possible Atlantic hurricane season

[Blown Away]

Be interesting to see how the climate change impacts the AMO when it flips to cool phase…

[Ianswfl]

I have wondered how much storms the Atlantic can produce. I know West Pacific have the most storms. They can go as high as 39 storms. West Pacific is larger and the area of warm water is larger compared to the Atlantic.

I would not be surprised prior to satellite that there have been over 30 storms in the Atlantic.

1933 very likely had many more storms. Remember, no satellites back then so you know there were a lot of storms not counted.

Also 1969. that was still the early days of satellite so I'm sure there were weak storms in the open atl not counted because satellites were not good enough back then to examine low level structures like they are now where junk storms are now named.

It's funny you mention that. By the 70s it was quite the opposite, where systems were designated depressions purely for convection. Scatterometer satellites had yet to be developed. This led to inactive years like 1973 netting a whopping 24 depressions (only 8 became storms officially).

So it probably had more like 13 named storms. Probably like the 2013 hurricane season.

[Ptarmigan]

1933 very likely had many more storms. Remember, no satellites back then so you know there were a lot of storms not counted.

Also 1969. that was still the early days of satellite so I'm sure there were weak storms in the open atl not counted because satellites were not good enough back then to examine low level structures like they are now where junk storms are now named.

It's funny you mention that. By the 70s it was quite the opposite, where systems were designated depressions purely for convection. Scatterometer satellites had yet to be developed. This led to inactive years like 1973 netting a whopping 24 depressions (only 8 became storms officially).

So it probably had more like 13 named storms. Probably like the 2013 hurricane season.

There is no doubt in my mind that 1933 was very active. I think it was more active than 2005 and 2020.

Interesting about the 1970s that there were many tropical depressions. Many were likely tropical storms to even possible hurricanes.

[WalterWhite]

If we limit our sample to 2013 onwards, this is what we get:

The format is storms/hurricanes/major hurricanes/ACE

THEORETICAL LIMIT:

January: 1/1/0/4.2 (2016)
April: 1/0/0/0.8 (2017)
May: 2/0/0/2.1 (2020)
June: 3/0/0/7.1 (2023)
July: 5/2/0/12.2 (2020 for storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes; 2018 for ACE)
August: 6/4/2/31.2 (2021 for storms, major hurricanes, and ACE; 2017 for hurricanes)
September: 10/4/3/174.1 (2020 for storms and hurricanes, 2017 for major hurricanes and ACE)
October: 5/4/3/71.3 (2019 for storms, 2020 for hurricanes and major hurricanes, 2016 for ACE)
November: 3/2/2/35.8 (2020)
December: 1/0/0/1.5 (2013)
Total: 37/17/10/340.3

PRACTICAL LIMIT:
18 storms (Jan-Aug total) * 0.75 = 13.5 storms -> 14 storms
7 hurricanes (Jan-Aug total) * 0.75 = 5.25 hurricanes -> 5 hurricanes
0 major hurricane (Jan-Aug total) * 0.75 = 0 major hurricanes
57.6 ACE (Jan-Aug total) * 0.75 = 43.2 ACCE
Practical limit: 33/15/10/325.9

Based on post-2013 statistics only, the realistic maximum activity that can be expected from a hurricane season is 33 storms, 15 hurricanes, 10 major hurricanes, and 325.9 ACE.