The 2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast
June 20, 2019
The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season is here and we’re covering what you can expect from this year’s storms.
The Atlantic hurricane season spans from June 1 to November 30, with the largest number of hurricanes and tropical storms typically forming in September. Season storms affect the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Carribean Sea. The 2019 season is expected to be a near-average with a total of 14 named storms, six hurricanes, and two major hurricanes (category 3-4-5 with winds of 111 mph or higher), according to the Colorado State University. This a slight decrease from 2018’s 15 named storms, eight hurricanes, and two major hurricanes across the Atlantic Basin.
2018 Hurricane Recap
Two major storms devastated the Carolina coasts and the Florida Panhandle in 2018: Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael.
Hurricane Florence, a category 4 storm, created major wind damage along the North Carolina Coast in September 2018. Extensive damage resulted in a staggering 670,000 power outages and thousands of downed trees. Hurricane Florence’s death toll reached 53, including fatalities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Hurricane Michael, a category 5 storm, resulted in "devastating to catastrophic damage" in Bay County, Florida in October 2018, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm caused a whopping 1.7 million power outages and was directly responsible for 16 deaths and approximately $25 billion in damage in the U.S.
2019 Hurricane Forecasts
Colorado State University calculated the probabilities for at least one major (category 3-4-5) hurricane landfall on each of the following coastal areas in 2019:
1. Entire continental U.S. coastline: 54% (the average for last century is 52%)
2. U.S. East coast including Peninsula Florida: 32% (the average for last century is 31%)
3. Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville: 31% (the average for last century is 30%)
How KUBRA Is Preparing
KUBRA has taken a proactive approach in planning for the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. Depending on the impact of each storm, we expect to see extensive use of our customer communications systems including Storm Center™ outage maps and any text, email, and voice notifications with Notifi®.
To prepare for the season, the KUBRA team is reviewing our hosted server health, including system logs and application logs. We are verifying that resources are available for any system that might see increased storm traffic, as well as coordinating 24/7 support plans for increased KUBRA resource availability.
KUBRA Storm Center outage maps proved to be a critical resource during each storm, with more than 33.6 million map views during the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season. Of that, 3.1 million views were received during Hurricane Michael and 2.2 million during Hurricane Florence.
To help your utility prepare for hurricane season, read our blog, “Top 3 Ways To Prepare Your Utility for Hurricane Season 2019”. You can also visit kubra.com to set up a demo of Storm Center outage map and Notifi alerts and preference management today.