2021 Hurricane Season ends as third most active on record

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season officially comes to an end November 30. Once again, the year was an active one, producing 21 named storms (winds 39 mph or greater). Of those, seven became hurricanes (winds 74 mph or greater), and four became major hurricanes.

All of the names have be used for the second consecutive year.(NOAA)

This was the third most active year on record in terms of named storms, marking the sixth consecutive above-normal Atlantic hurricane season. This was the first time on record that two consecutive hurricane seasons used up all 21 storm names on the list.

Revisit all the storms, their strength and dates in our Hurricane Center.

WHY SUCH AN ACTIVE STRETCH?

Scientists continue to attribute the active stretch of hurricane activity in recent years to the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation that began in 1995 and favors more, stronger, and longer-lasting storms. Climate variability is thought to lead to some of of the increased activity in recent decades.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, released in August 2021, projects with high confidence that the global proportion of tropical cyclones that reach very intense (category 4-5) levels, along with their peak winds and rainfall rates, are expected to increase with climate warming at the global scale.

This could mean the active years such as the ones we have seen could become the “new normal.”