The past three Atlantic hurricane seasons have been active, with a hurricane making landfall in Florida each year — Hermine in 2016, Irma in 2017, and Michael in 2018. Current forecasts/outlooks call for a below-normal to near-normal season, but even a “normal” season means you get a lot of storms.
From the SNN weather team to NOAA, the warning is always the same: it only takes one. Whether or not a season is busy, all it takes is one landfall to make the season seem active to you. All hurricanes can bypass you in an active season (no storms made landfall in Florida during the active 2010 and 2012 hurricane seasons), while a powerful hurricane can hit during a less active season (Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Florida as a category 5 storm in 1992, which was a below-normal season).
In this special, we tackle several topics:
- Hurricane Michael’s aftermath
- The rise in extreme weather and many of the extreme weather events of the year so far
- Why extreme weather is on the rise
- Lessons from Michael and when/how to prepare
A panel of Suncoast emergency management heads joined us for the final topic, moderated by Chief Meteorologist Justin Mosely. Meteorologists Marco La Manno and Dan Henry, as well as SNN reporter Jennifer Kveglis, contributed to the special. Operations manager Kelby Miller and promotions producer Andrea Chu helped put the special together. We hope this is helpful and educational to you, and we’ll be with you each day for the duration of the season. Prepare for the worst, but as always, we’ll hope for the best and that we safely ride out the season.