By Clint Thompson
The calendar turns to October this week. While the Southeast has dodged a major hurricane so far this year, specialty crop growers and homeowners must remember they are not out of the woods yet.
Pam Knox, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension agricultural climatologist, discussed the potential for storms this time of year.
“We’re passed the peak of the normal hurricane season, but we still get a significant fraction of them (this time of year),” Knox said. “You think of some of the most significant ones that have hit here in Georgia, like Michael and Idalia and Helene; those were all fall storms. So even though I’m not necessarily predicting we’re going to have a storm like that, for sure, we’re not out of the season yet.”
A second straight year with zero hurricane impact in the Southeast would be a welcomed sight for fruit and vegetable farmers who produce such crops like pecans, citrus and blueberries.
“There’s only been a couple of seasons in the historical record that have had no hurricanes. So those are over 100 years back, like 1907 and 1914. We didn’t have satellites then, so we don’t really know if there were hurricanes that we just missed that were out in the middle of the ocean. But at least as far as the historical record goes, those are the only two years,” Knox said.
“This is the record latest that we haven’t had a hurricane, at least in the satellite era, which is about from 1966 or so. It’s definitely a rare event. Of course, we didn’t really have a hurricane last year either. I haven’t seen the statistics on two years with very few hurricanes. That’s got to be pretty rare as well.”