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How to read the record

Every number on this site comes from two text files kept by NOAA's National Hurricane Center, plus map data from Natural Earth. This page explains what the files contain, what they leave out, and how each figure here is worked out.

The best track

After each season, forecasters reanalyze every tropical and subtropical cyclone and publish a "best track": the storm's center position, maximum sustained wind and central pressure every six hours, at 00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC, with extra records at landfall and at peak intensity. The files are called HURDAT2. The Atlantic file starts in 1851 and holds 1,988 storms; the eastern and central North Pacific file starts in 1949 and holds 1,262. Both run through the 2025 season. The Atlantic file used here was updated on September 23, 2026, the Pacific file on September 29, 2026.

All dates and times are in UTC, as in the source. A storm that came ashore in Florida late in the evening local time can carry the next day's date.

Older records are less certain

Before routine satellite coverage began in the mid-1960s, storms were tracked from ship reports, coastal stations and, from the 1940s, aircraft. Intensities from that era are estimates with wide error bars, short-lived storms far from land were often missed, and central pressure was rarely measured. Counts and ranks that reach back to 1851 or 1949 compare a well-observed recent record with a thinner early one. Pages give the scope of every rank ("of the Atlantic storms since 1851") rather than a corrected figure.

Wind, categories and units

Wind is the one-minute sustained wind at 10 meters, stored in knots in steps of five. This site shows miles per hour, converted the way the National Hurricane Center does: multiplied by 1.15078 and rounded to the nearest 5 mph. Pressure is in millibars.

Categories follow the Saffir-Simpson scale from the knot thresholds 64, 83, 96, 113 and 137 (74, 96, 111, 130 and 157 mph). A storm's category is the highest it reached while the file classed it as a hurricane. Records marked extratropical, low or disturbance never count toward a category, even with high winds.

Landfalls

A landfall is a record with the identifier "L": the center crossing a coastline. Each one is placed in the state, province or country whose coast lies nearest in Natural Earth's 1:10m boundaries; for the United States, Mexico and Canada that is the state or province, for French, Dutch, British, Portuguese and Spanish territories the island or region, elsewhere the country. Landfall records more than 75 km from any coast in that file are not shown; there are 6 of them. Landfall records are not complete. The Atlantic file has none for the seasons 1976 to 1982, and the Pacific file carries them almost only from 1989 on; earlier identifiers were added mostly for United States coasts. Every landfall count on this site is therefore a count of landfall records, and a storm with no landfall record may still have crossed land. The best track holds no damage or death figures, and none appear here.

Measures worked out on this site

Accumulated cyclone energy (ACE). The sum of the squared wind, in knots, divided by 10,000, over the six-hourly records at 00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC while the storm was classed as a tropical storm or hurricane with winds of 34 knots or more. Subtropical stages are left out. A season's ACE is the sum over its storms.

Days as a tropical or subtropical cyclone. Time from the first to the last record classed as a tropical or subtropical depression, storm or hurricane, including any gap in between.

Largest one-day wind rise. The largest rise in wind between two six-hourly records exactly 24 hours apart, both tropical or subtropical. The National Hurricane Center calls a rise of 30 knots or more in 24 hours rapid intensification.

Track length. The great-circle distance along the whole best track, first to last position, including extratropical and remnant stages.

Wind field. From 2004 the files give the distance of tropical-storm-force (34-knot) and hurricane-force (64-knot) winds from the center in four quadrants. The widest value of any quadrant at any record is used. Ranks for size only compare storms from 2004 on.

Slowest day. The shortest distance the center moved between two records 24 hours apart while the storm was a tropical storm or hurricane at both.

Places passed. Towns and cities of 10,000 people or more from Natural Earth's populated places, between 5 and 50°N and 55 and 162°W. Distance is from the place to the straight line between consecutive positions, on a flat projection centered on the place, counted only while the storm was tropical or subtropical at both ends of the step.

Ranks. A rank compares a storm with every storm in the same basin's file, or with every storm that has the value (pressure, wind field). Ties share a rank. A season ranks against every season of its basin.

Which storms have a page

Of all the storms in the two files, 209 have their own page. A storm qualifies with at least two of these: a top-ten rank in its basin for peak wind, lowest pressure, ACE, lifespan, track length, 24-hour wind rise, hours as a major hurricane, wind-field size, slowest day, or farthest north or south as a hurricane; a top-five rank for earliest or latest date of becoming a hurricane; Category 5 strength; one of the three strongest landfalls in an area with eight or more storms; or landfall records in three or more areas. One such fact also qualifies when it comes with two of these: the season's strongest storm, the season's largest share of ACE, a landfall as a major hurricane, a 24-hour rise of 50 knots or more, or a hurricane landfall in the United States. Every storm whose name is on the National Hurricane Center's list of retired names (Tropical Cyclone Naming History and Retired Names) also has a page; all 122 of those names match a storm in the files. A top-ten rank shared by five or more storms does not count as a fact. Every other storm appears in its season's table and in the storm finder.

When a storm has fewer than three of these facts, its opening paragraph adds others worked out the same way: the rank of its strongest landfall among all storms with a landfall record in that area, its lowest pressure against the other storms of its decade, its rank by peak wind in its season, its share of the season's accumulated cyclone energy, its largest one-day wind rise, and its lifespan and track length.

Checks on the data

Sources

NOAA National Hurricane Center, Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT2) 1851–2025 and Northeast and North Central Pacific hurricane database (HURDAT2) 1949–2025, nhc.noaa.gov/data. Reference: Landsea, C. W. and J. L. Franklin, 2013: Atlantic Hurricane Database Uncertainty and Presentation of a New Database Format. Monthly Weather Review, 141, 3576–3592. Natural Earth 1:10m states and provinces, populated places and land, 1:50m land, naturalearthdata.com. HURDAT2 is a work of the United States government; Natural Earth is in the public domain.

This site describes past storms only. It does not forecast, and nothing here is guidance about current or future weather.