Answers: Back to back storms hitting Florida
By Jack Williams, USATODAY.com
Q: When Hurricane Charley hit Florida a day after Tropical Storm Bonnie hit the same state, was this the first time two storms have hit the same state so close together?
A: A tropical storm and a hurricane or two hurricanes have hit Florida within a day or two of each other at least twice before this year, in 1837 and again in 1906.
The case of the 1837 storms required some detective work on the part of Al Sandrik the warning and coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Jacksonville, Fla.
Before what is now the National Weather Service was organized in 1870, the USA had no organized, regular collection of weather data. Also, until much later in the 19th century people, including the few meteorologists of the time, weren't really aware of the differences between tropical and extratropical cyclones, even though they knew that some of the storms that came from the tropics were unusually strong. (Related: Tropical and extratropical storms)
This means that it can take a lot of work by a skilled meteorologist to figure out from old data whether a storm was really a weak hurricane or tropical storm rather than an extratropical storm.
Today, when we see satellite images of hurricanes from the time they are beginning as tropical depressions until they die, it's hard to imagine how little people knew about storms and how they moved more than a century ago.
Fortunately, more ships than today sailed along the USA's coasts in the 19th century and their captains generally had barometers and an eye for weather. They regularly noted weather conditions, including wind directions and estimated wind speeds in their log books. They also often gave detailed information about storms they encountered to newspapers in the ports they visited.
Newspapers of the day also described the storms that hit their towns, often with details such as the height of storm surge flooding, that help today's hurricane detectives figure out what happened.
Using this kind of information, Sandrik and other National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists are collecting information about hurricanes and tropical storms, and using their knowledge of meteorology to figure out when and where storms hit.
The aim is to put together a more complete history of U.S. hurricanes, which will lead to better calculations of the odds of hurricanes hitting different parts of the coast.
Sandrik says that a strong hurricane apparently crossed southern Florida around Aug. 1 and 2, 1837 and went into the Gulf of Mexico where it lingered — possibly making a loop or loops somewhat like Hurricane Elena did in 1995 — before heading north to hit near the Pensacola, Fla. area on Aug. 7. While the storm's eye probably hit the Alabama Coast a little west of Pensacola, the storm's strongest side hit Florida. (Related: 1985 hurricanes)
Meanwhile, another hurricane had hit northeastern Florida, probably coming across what is modern-day Jacksonville, on Aug. 6. This could be a storm that had hit Puero Rico four days before. (Related report:Tropical storms hitting northeast Florida 1565-1899)
Sandrik mentioned that two storms had probably hit Florida in 1906.
I looked into the Unisys Tropical Cyclone Data for 1906 and found that on Oct. 17-18, 1906 a Category 3 hurricane, moving from the southwest toward the northeast, crossed the Florida Keys and the southern part of the state into the Atlantic Ocean, weakening to a Category 2 storm as it crossed the tip of Florida. (Related: Unisys Tropical Cyclone Data for 1906)
Also on Oct. 17, a tropical storm with 39 mph winds — making it barely a tropical storm — hit near St. Augustine.
By 1906 the Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) had stations all over the country with trained observers and calibrated instruments. This combined with information from ships, probably means the information is pretty good.
But, I wouldn't want to bet tomorrow's lunch money that the storm was really a tropical storm and not a tropical depression. That's a question that could settled about a storm today only if a hurricane hunter airplane had collected observations of the storm right before it hit or its center happened to cross a weather station's instruments.
By the way, this year wasn't the first time Bonnie and Charley hit the USA.
In 1998, Hurricane Bonnie and Tropical Storm Charley hit four days apart with Bonnie hitting North Carolina and Virginia four days after Charley hit Texas.
Hurricane Bonnie hit Cape Fear, N.C. on Aug. 26, 1998 and weakened over land before it went back out to sea and to come ashore again as a hurricane in the Virginia Beach-Norfolk area. This was four days after Tropical Storm Charlie had hit Texas with 70 mph winds — just short of being a 74 mph hurricane — that brought heavy rain and floods. (Related stories: Hurricane Bonnie and Tropical Storm Bonnie)
Bonnie had formed over the Atlantic east of the Lesser Antilles on Aug. 21; the year's second named storm. Charlie formed in the Gulf of Mexico, also on Aug. 21, the day before it hit Texas.
List of names of tropical storms and hurricanes are recycled, with each list of names being used again after six years. But, the names of very destructive storms are retired and new names beginning with the same letter replaces them.
The National Hurricane Center didn't consider the 1998 Bonnie nor that year's Charley destructive enough to retire their names. (Related: Retired storm names)