"Favorite" individual hurricanes?

[mitchell]

Hurricane Doria 1967. It was the only Hurricane that ever forced me (my parents) to evacuate (we were on a barrier island in Delaware) and the path is still pretty amazing. Coming STRAIGHT west towards the mid Atlantic from the east and then turned SOUTH!

[Hurricane2000]

Patricia 2015, that storm was a once-in-a-lifetime event

[storm_in_a_teacup]

I'm originally from Houston and had family working in Galveston for a long time so for me the ones I feel the greatest connection to are the 1900 Galveston storm, Hurricane Carla, and Hurricane Harvey. My nanny lived through Carla and told me stories about the storm, and I learned about the 1900 hurricane in middle school and became obsessed with it for years.
Harvey is self-explanatory.
...all three of course are major characters in the stories I have posted on this site.

[Yellow Evan]

Some other random ones I enjoy - some I followed while it was ongoing some I did not:
Jova 23
Hagibis 19
Bento 04
Nepartak 16
Kalunde 03
Holly 87
Fengshen 02
Isabel 03
Gilbert 88
Maria 17
Milton 24
Elida 02
Olivia 82
Dora 23

[DorkyMcDorkface]

Some other random ones I enjoy - some I followed while it was ongoing some I did not:
Jova 23
Hagibis 19
Bento 04
Nepartak 16
Kalunde 03
Holly 87
Fengshen 02
Isabel 03
Gilbert 88
Maria 17
Milton 24
Elida 02
Olivia 82
Dora 23

Isabel's (non-annular) peak is one of my favorites, for a storm out in the open Atlantic it doesn't get much better than this. Unfortunately if you live in the DMV like I do no one remembers it for that...

[hurricaneCW]

Isabel for its perfect donut shape and was the first hurricane I followed and tracked closely when I was young. Huge reason why I love weather today. Also remember going to the NJ boardwalk to experience some of its effects.

After that Wilma for its sheer record shattering terror on top of that record shattering season.

[Hurricane2000]

More of my favorites!

Dianmu 2004
Mike 1990
Jova 2023
Genevieve 2014
Hagibis 2019
Hina 1985
Olaf 2005
Gilbert 1988
Holly 1987
Vanessa 1984
Meranti 2016
Juliette 2001
Nuri 2014
Rita 1978
Sam 2021
Gafilo 2004
Zeb 1998
Meli 1979
Vongfong 2014
Kiko 1983
Kong-rey 2018
Maria 2017 (Yes I know how bad this storm was but I really liked its second peak)

[chaser1]

Looking back, I'd have to say that my favorite hurricane occured 40 years ago during August of that year. Hurricane Danny made landfall on August 16 1985. It certainly wasn't the most destructive hurricane of the year nor did Hurricane Danny have a particularly interesting storm track (such as Elena during that same year). Danny was however, the first hurricane that I ever chased, intercepted, and even the rare opportunity to experience a "hurricane walk" just as the hurricane began to landfall on the Louisiana coast.

[storm_in_a_teacup]

Well, I started tracking hurricanes in 1961 with Carla, but Carla didn't affect me in Lafayette. The two that did affect me growing up are Hilda in '64 and Betsy in '65. Those two hurricanes sparked my interest in hurricanes. I remember during Hilda (I as 7 yrs old) we were all huddled in the living room on mattresses that evening. I was bored, so my father suggested that I go play with my electric train. When I got to my bedroom, I realized that there was a problem. The power had been out for hours.

This is like three years later, but I hadn't seen this post. It's interesting you mention Carla because it's also one of the storms that got me interested in hurricanes, but it's also a storm that's so long ago nobody really talks about it anymore. I though of course was not old enough to live through it, but my nanny was in it and told me lots of stories as a kid about how the wind sounded and how even her house's garage door was being bent in and out by the wind blowing past

[Astromanía]

Dora and Hector in the EPAC

[sasha_B]

Honestly, Humberto 2025 might be a new favourite of mine. In addition to making 2024-2025 the first pair of consecutive seasons with multiple Cat 5s in the satellite era, it also seems to be the case - at least for the moment - that it is the first Category 5 Atlantic hurricane to which not a single fatality has been attributed. Of course, who knows how many high-end fish storms were missed *prior* to the satellite era, but every SSHWS Cat 5 in the basin for the past sixty years has come at a human cost. Not so Humberto - you could even make the (unprovable counterfactual) argument that it mitigated Imelda's potential impacts to the US East Coast.

What's more, there's decent evidence from the post-EWRC recon flight that Humberto surpassed Erin and Irma for the title of second-deepest tropical cyclone in the open Atlantic. It might've even challenged Dorian's record; I wouldn't go that far, and there's no way the NHC will, but as has been discussed in the main thread + the "Intense Tropical Cyclones" thread, the case for a sub-915-hPa peak is quite strong.

Any one of these things would make a hurricane mildly interesting. All of them at once is, in my opinion, truly special.

[emeraldislenc]

Showing my age but it was Hazel for me in 1954. I was living in eastern NC at the time, I was in the third grade and it was the first time I saw the damage of a hurricane. Had a family friend that lived in Carolina Beach and we visited her after Hazel. She stayed for the hurricane and experienced the damage and the storm surge. I saw her pictures and heard the story of Hazel. She really encouraged me to study hurricanes. In fact she gave me a fantastic hurricane tracking map from The Miami Herald and still have the map. Later in my life I moved to the coast of NC and experienced many hurricanes. Hazel was the storm that peaked my interest in Hurricanes and Weather. If I had my life to live over again I would have studied meteorology in college.
Sorry if I rambled!

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

The record-setting Eastern Pacific Cat Five Hurricane John from 1994, from offshore SW Mexico to Alaska, lived for over a month with no fatalities.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_John_(1994)

[storm_in_a_teacup]

The record-setting Eastern Pacific Cat Five Hurricane John from 1994, from offshore SW Mexico to Alaska, lived for over a month with no fatalities.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/John_1994_path.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_John_(1994)

Just was living his best life

[Category5Kaiju]

While Beryl still is my "favorite" hurricane based on how anomalous it was and how it basically "ripped up climatology's instructions into pieces," Melissa is officially the strongest Atlantic hurricane that I've ever tracked. And, unless you were tracking hurricanes in 1935, 1980, and 2005, then I'm sure I'm not the only one who is saying this.

[cheezyWXguy]

While Beryl still is my "favorite" hurricane based on how anomalous it was and how it basically "ripped up climatology's instructions into pieces," Melissa is officially the strongest Atlantic hurricane that I've ever tracked. And, unless you were tracking hurricanes in 1935, 1980, and 2005, then I'm sure I'm not the only one who is saying this.

2005 checking in. Milton was the one that reminded me most of goosebumps I got from Wilma, but Melissa felt like watching the Atlantic produce its own version of Haiyan to me - an initial burst of ERI followed by stair-stepping into near-uncharted territory. Like Dorky above though, Isabel is the favorite for me. Id paid some attention to Fabian a few weeks prior, but Isabel was the first major I ever really tracked. I’d come home from school each day and check for updates on Weatherbug, haha. Its annular structure fascinated me and I had no idea at the time how rare a storm structure like it would be.