CyclonicFury wrote:98L looks like it has a good chance to become a major hurricane in the MDR. It would be hard to call a MDR that produced two majors lackluster. The last season to produce two or more majors in the MDR was 2017.
Going back to 1960, the first year to be tracked by satellite, I decided to search for all the seasons that featured at least two MH in the MDR. I only managed to locate eight such cases: 1980, 1989, 1996, 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, and 2017. In particular, 2009 stands out because it coincided with moderate Niño conditions yet featured Bill and Fred—the latter “officially” the second-farthest-east MH in the MDR up to that date, trailing 1980’s Frances, which, based on satellite imagery (pending reanalysis), was likely even stronger than Fred, while sited even farther southeast. With three MH in the MDR each, 2004 and 2017 stand out as the two most prolific years within the set. Despite coinciding with a west-based or “Modoki” Niño, 2004 featured no fewer than three storms that attained Category-4 status while in the MDR: Frances, Ivan, and Karl. Interestingly, since the launch of satellites there has been no MH in the MDR during October, so if a system behind 98L were to somehow become a MH while still in the MDR, it would join a very exclusive club.