AccuWeather hurricane experts predicted a supercharged 2024 season. What arrived was a deadly, explosive and historic year. Here's a look back.
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00:00It's a total mess, people have been swept away, business have been ruined, lives have
00:09been lost.
00:10It's been flooded before, but this is completely insane.
00:13There was probably 12 or so houses out on Eazell Beach that are no longer there.
00:18We don't know where we go from here.
00:21This season had trouble written all over it right from the beginning.
00:25Unfortunately, I must say the news isn't good.
00:28No, it's not good.
00:29We expect an above average number of named storms.
00:33We saw what was going to happen and that's why we use such strong language to alert people
00:38where we forecast an extraordinarily active season, a supercharged season with 20 to 25
00:45named storms and 4 to 6 U.S. impacts.
00:49Three words, Gulf of Mexico.
00:54That's how I'm going to remember the hurricane season.
00:56Why?
00:57Because that's where we had all the impacts.
00:59We had five hurricane impacts in the Gulf of Mexico, including the upper Texas coast
01:06with Barrel.
01:07Then we had Debbie, then we had Francine, then we had Helene, and then we had Milton.
01:14When you look at the season and you see the amount of damage and total economic loss,
01:20we're talking about $500 billion.
01:23So much of it was water damage from a tremendous storm surge that occurred during many storms
01:29right at the coastline and near the coastline, and then significant inland flooding.
01:36The season had started active, then we had that long lull, but this year, quiet.
01:43In fact, it was the longest stretch since 1968 where no new named storms had developed
01:51for a several week time period.
01:54AccuWeather hurricane experts issued our first track and intensity forecast for Francine
01:5924 hours before the government and any other source to provide people, businesses, and
02:04governments with valuable extra advance notice.
02:08Landfall of Hurricane Francine occurring right when the AccuWeather forecast projected it.
02:14AccuWeather was also the only source to most accurately forecast that Francine would intensify
02:20into a Category 2 hurricane prior to making landfall across Louisiana.
02:28Helene was a truly historic storm.
02:30It will go down as one of the most disastrous hurricanes in U.S. history.
02:36The sheer size of Helene and how it intensified didn't surprise us because we anticipated
02:43that was going to happen.
02:45A major hurricane continuing to intensify by all indications and we're concerned about
02:50a variety of serious catastrophic impacts right at the coast and inland in the coming
02:57days.
02:58We were the only source to call Helene a catastrophic flooding disaster across parts of the southern
03:05Appalachians.
03:06A catastrophic risk.
03:08That just shows you the urgency and how concerned we are about how dangerous this flooding situation
03:13can get across portions of the southern Appalachians where rain may fall at two to four inches
03:19per hour.
03:20It's too fast, too furious in the steep terrain.
03:23We're talking about roads and bridges that may be washed out and in fact communities
03:28which may be isolated for days.
03:31We use that wording specifically to help people, businesses, and governments understand just
03:38how dangerous and how unique and how serious the situation was going to be inland.
03:45It resembled a tsunami that just knocked everything down in its path.
03:50We lost everything, family, friends, homes, our jobs, everything, our animals.
03:56We have nothing.
03:57We got family members floating down the river.
04:00It's a mess man.
04:01There's trees down.
04:02There's water everywhere.
04:03Water's off.
04:04We don't have any power.
04:06Nobody has cash.
04:07You can't buy anything.
04:08You can't get any gas, so it's a disaster.
04:12Having two major hurricane landfalls is very rare in the United States coastline within
04:18just a matter of a couple of weeks.
04:20It was slow.
04:22It took its time.
04:25We sounded the alarm on this well in advance as well, but we were always pretty convinced
04:30that once again it was going to be the Florida Peninsula that would bear the brunt of yet
04:35another hurricane.
04:45Our thoughts are with the so many people whose lives were changed forever.
04:50These storms have cost hundreds of lives, tragically cost hundreds of lives and impacted
04:56thousands of families.
04:58The number of storms that we had outside of the heart of the hurricane season is something
05:04else.
05:06So despite the fact that there have been so many negative aspects of the season, we know
05:11that the AccuWeather forecast once again saved many lives and helped people best prepare.
05:18That's what we do here at AccuWeather.
05:20That's our mission and that's what we'll do on the next storm as well.