On August 9th, deep in the southern Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Franklin reached 85mph winds before moving into Mexico. Although the storm dropped some heavy rains over the Mexican state of Veracruz, Franklin's effects were relatively moderate, and it was soon forgotten.
But Franklin's formation two months ago, eight additional tropical systems have developed and been assigned names by the National Hurricane Center. And during this frenetic season, all of those systems have become hurricanes as well. That's nine in a row, which is unprecedented in the modern hurricane era.
According to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane scientist at Colorado State University, nine consecutive named storms have not reached hurricane status since 1893. The record is 10 such storms, which happened in 1878, 1886, and 1893. However, it is unlikely that those years really recorded 10 hurricanes in a row, given that most observations were made on land or by ships.
"Obviously vastly different observing system now than in 19th century," Klotzbach noted, via Twitter. Indeed, regular tropical system observations by aircraft didn't begin until the mid-20th century, and satellite observations of the Atlantic basin weren't commonplace until the 1960s or 1970s. Therefore, it seems likely that a few stray tropical storms were missed during the busy seasons of the 1800s.
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