Category 5 Hurricane Statistics (1950-Present)

[donsutherland1]

The Atlantic season's first tropical storm strengthened rapidly today, turned into a hurricane and then strengthened even more as it moved along a course aimed directly at the South Florida coast.
--The New York Times, August 23, 1992

Some statistics on Category 5 hurricanes:

Since 1950, there have been the following number of hurricanes by category (and this includes Frances):

Category 5: 22
Category 4: 51
Category 3: 67
Category 2: 60
Category 1: 128

Years with at least 1 Category 5 Hurricane (1950-Present):

1960 2
1961 2
1950 1
1951 1
1955 1
1957 1
1958 1
1964 1
1965 1
1967 1
1969 1*
1971 1
1977 1
1979 1
1980 1
1988 1
1989 1
1992 1*
1998 1
2003 1

* - denotes that the storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane (Andrew in 1992 and Camille in 1969)

Also, 7 of those 20 years (35%) had a warm MEI and warm PDO for the Hurricane Season (as is all but certain in the 2004 season).

Overall, approximately 1 out of every 2.45 years since 1950 has seen a Category 5 hurricane develop.

Landfalling Major Hurricanes by Category (through Charley):

Category 5: 2
Category 4: 5
Category 3: 23

[Valkhorn]

1998 only had ONE category 5 storm, dude.

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atl ... index.html

[Hurricanehink]

1960 shouldn't even be listed on there. I seriously doubt that Ethel went from Cat. 1 to Cat. 3 to Cat. 5 back down to Cat. 1 landfalling as a tropical storm. Conditions couldn't change that much in 6 hours to weaken a Cat. 5 160 M.P.H. to 90 M.P.H. However, I wouldn't mind if Frances did that; weakening to a T.S. before hitting the coast.

[donsutherland1]

Sorry, I had a typo. There was only 1 Category 5 storm in 1998.