Good afternoon again everyone. Today, something very rare happened in the tropics. True that we have three tropical systems going on at the same time, which is no small feat. But there’s more. With Hurricane Igor maintaining its Category Four intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Scale in the Central Atlantic, and Hurricane Julia rapidly strengthening to a Category Four storm this morning in the Eastern Atlantic. It was the first time since 1926 that there have been two Category Four storms at the same time.

The last time it happened with all the records that we’ve had since 1851 was on September 16, 1926. It only happened for a six hour period as well in the morning on that day. One of those two storms was the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, which made landfall two days later with winds of 135 miles per hour, and a minimum central pressure of 935 millibars, or 27.61 inches of Hg. It is amazing with all the tools that we have at our disposal to monitor these systems that this is the first time in almost 80 years that this has happened. One thing that hinders accurate recording of such things is the fact that no flights can be made into tropical storms and hurricanes in the Eastern Atlantic. The data on Igor and Julia is really based on estimates from satellite interpretations.

Looking at some other historical data, other storms that were in the same location as Hurricane Igor on this date were Hurricane Diane (1955), the first billion dollar hurricane, and Hurricane Gabrielle (1989), which went out to sea. Only five named storms have existed in the same location as Hurricane Julia, and two recent and significant storms existed in the same location as Tropical Storm Kyle in Hurricane Keith (2000) and Hurricane Dean (2007). Dean was one of the last Category Five Hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin. We’ve just past the statistical peak of the Atlantic Season (September 10th), but things are still very busy.

Looking at storms that have formed on this date in Hurricaneville History, there were nine storms that formed on September 15th since 1851. Only one was a major hurricane at landfall, but another storm that emerged on this date that many may remember was Hurricane Georges, which was a powerful hurricane at one point before making landfall in the Central Gulf as a Category Two Hurricane. Of the nine storms that formed on this date, five of them became hurricanes.