By Clint Thompson
First Helene, then Milton. Mother Nature’s 1-2 punch of hurricanes took different paths in impacting the Southeast this fall.
Instead of making their way across the Atlantic, those two major hurricanes originated in the western Caribbean. It did not take long for them to hit the Gulf of Mexico and impact southeastern states; Helene in North Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, while Milton hammered central and southern Florida.
“It is surprising to me that so many of the storms we have seen this year have not been the classic storms that form in the eastern Atlantic and zoom all the way across the Atlantic and then comes towards us. That would be more like a Katrina storm or an Andrew storm,” said Pam Knox, University of Georgia Extension agricultural climatologist. “A lot of them have formed in the western Caribbean. That’s just the way it’s set up this year.”
The latest storm activity, however, is currently located in the Atlantic. What is potentially Nadine could impact the Southeast in the near future. It would continue a string of storm activity that has more than made up for the lack of activity present a couple of months ago.
“The bigger surprise was how quiet it was in August. Remember, we didn’t really have anything for over a month. Then all of a sudden things started picking up and started looking more like the season I expected which was an active season,” Knox said. “This year it happened to all be back loaded. We did have some early stuff, too, like Beryl. There was a long spell after Debby where we really didn’t have anything.”