RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — We are 20 days from the peak of hurricane season, which comes on September 10. Right now however, it’s almost feeling like we’re at the peak already.
On Monday morning, we had three named tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean and two areas to monitor for tropical development.
All of the Atlantic activity is coming amidst Hurricane Hilary making landfall in southern California on Sunday.
While the sudden rush in tropical activity may be alarming, it’s not unheard of.
Back on September 11, 1971, seven tropical systems were swirling around in the Atlantic Ocean concurrently. Three of them ended up making landfall as a hurricane.
One of those impacted North Carolina — Hurricane Ginger. It dropped over a foot of rain in the outer banks and caused around $10 million of damage at the time.
A third of the names on the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season have already been crossed off. Back in 2020, we ran out of names and had to go to the backup name list at the time, the Greek alphabet.
However, after that season, the World Meteorological Organization decided to toss out the Greek letters for names and make a supplemental list of names in case a hyper-active season happens again.
