11 Years Ago Yesterday: Hurricane Wilma and the Streak

The talk of the sports world recently has been streaks. Tonight, the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians match up in the World Series, and these two teams have been apart of two of the more absurd streaks in sports history. The Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908 (I would guess that you weren’t alive if you’re reading this), and haven’t been to the World Series since 1908, and the Indians haven’t won since 1948. One of those streaks will be broken within the next two weeks.

h/t google.com
h/t google.com

A streak that doesn’t look to be broken is the streak of “Consecutive Major Hurricanes not making landfall in the US”. Much like the Cubs were within (since broken) the longest streak without a championship game appearance in any of the major sports, the US currently is within the longest Major Hurricane miss streak since records have been kept (back to 1851).

The last hurricane to make landfall in the US as a Major Hurricane (Category 3 strength; sustained winds >110 mph) was Hurricane Wilma back in 2005.

Hurricane Wilma

Hurricane Wilma wasn’t the last Hurricane in the record-shattering 2005 season, but it was an incredible last big “hoo-rah” for the tropics. In a season that featured Hurricane Emily, Dennis Katrina, Rita, etc., Wilma was the strongest of them all.

The 2005 hurricane season. h/t Wikipedia
The 2005 hurricane season. h/t Wikipedia

Hurricane Wilma began her life as a Tropical Depression in the central Caribbean, just south of Jamaica. Her early life was spent being fairly weak, until she hit warmer waters and an a very favorable environment. At that point, Hurricane Wilma rapidly intensified into the strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, falling to 882 mb at its peak. This intensification occurred during just a 24 hour timespan, and the winds had an increase of 90 knots during that timespan, as well.

A visualization of Hurricane Wilma's pressure. h/t hurricane.com
A visualization of Hurricane Wilma’s pressure. h/t hurricane.com

Wilma was an incredible storm system. For a point of reference, Hurricane Matthew’s minimum pressure just a few weeks ago was only 934 mb, a whole 52 mb weaker than Wilma was at her most intense. The majority of tropical cyclones can’t sustain that sort of strength for very long, and Wilma was no different, weakening to a Category 4 storm by the time she made landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Hurricane Wilma's track. h/t By Nilfanion - Created using Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Tracks. The background image was created by NASA. The tracking data is from the National Hurricane Center's Atlantic hurricane database, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=407458
Hurricane Wilma’s track. h/t https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=407458

Early on, Wilma was forecast to eventually make landfall on Florida’s southwestern coastline, but the intensity wasn’t forecast well. The NHC had the track excellently forecast from several days out, but they didn’t have the intensity correct, as they anticipated Hurricane Wilma to make landfall in Florida as around a 90 mph hurricane.

The forecast track for Hurricane Wilma shows the excellent job that the NHC did with the track. h/t NHC
The forecast track for Hurricane Wilma shows the excellent job that the NHC did with the track. h/t NHC

Well, Wilma had other plans. She emerged over the southern Gulf of Mexico and intensified until making landfall as a 125 mph, Category 3 Hurricane.

Hurricane Wilma after it exited Florida. h/t NASA
Hurricane Wilma after it exited Florida. h/t NASA

This occurred on October 24, 2005. That was 11 years ago, making this the last Major Hurricane to make landfall on US Soil.

The Streak

It has been 11 years since the last Major Hurricane struck the United States. That is 4020 days, and is the longest such streak on record.

Hurricane Matthew almost broke this streak. Hermine broke the general hurricane landfall streak, which ended at 791 days earlier this year, but Hurricane Matthew had a chance to break the Major Hurricane streak. Luckily for us, he didn’t. He came within 50 miles of breaking it, but he didn’t break it.

The track of Hurricane Matthew.
The track of Hurricane Matthew.

This is an interesting streak, as it just sounds like a good thing. Inherently, we don’t want Major Hurricanes to make landfall anywhere. It could also be spun as a bad thing in the sense that the US is well overdue. But I don’t necessarily think that it is either. The fact is that this streak means little outside of itself. The US just hasn’t seen a Major Hurricane landfall. That is about it. This is neither a good nor a bad thing, and it is honestly more good than it is bad. There has been a lot made of this streak in the meteorology realm, but it isn’t really that big of a deal. Since 2005, the patterns that steer Hurricanes have either been set up to steer them away from the US, or the storms just haven’t been strong enough at landfall. Simple as that. It is an interesting streak to think about, but overall, its not too significant.


As the streaks are a part of sports, they are apart of meteorology as well. This streak is one of the more interesting one, and it was begun by the strongest hurricane in Atlantic basin history.