As the most-active hurricane season on record approaches an end, Florida overall has been relatively lucky.
The 2020 Atlantic season, which on the calendar ends Monday, has put up 30 named storms --- requiring the use of the auxiliary Greek alphabet for only the second time ever.
Also, it has included 13 hurricanes, of which six were categorized as “major” storms, with winds over 111 miles per hour.
However, in a season that overlapped the coronavirus pandemic, most storms spun away from Florida.
National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Wool chalks the state’s fortune up to luck:
“We didn’t have any major land-falling hurricanes in the entire state of Florida this season. It’s just an astounding coincidence, quite frankly, that as busy as things were, all of the really big, bad hurricanes stayed away from the state of Florida.”
In total, Florida was affected by four of the named storms, and only what had been Hurricane Eta made direct landfall in the state, as a tropical storm.
The most memorable of this year’s storms for Florida was Hurricane Sally, which made landfall September 15th near Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Sally brought massive storm surge and flooding to the western Panhandle.
Among other things, the storm was responsible for three deaths in Florida, while crop, livestock and aquaculture losses have been estimated between 55 and 100 million dollars by University of Florida economists.
