Today is the peak of the hurricane season. If you look through the hurricane history books you'll find more storms churning on September 10th than any other day in history.
But South Floridians should wait a little while before letting down their guard.
This time of year, there's a lot of talk about the magical September 10th date. But for South Florida, our date of great importance is 11 days later. The 21st of September is the median date for hurricane activity.
Robert Molleda is with the National Weather Service in Miami. He dug through more than 150 years of weather data. Of the 41 hurricanes that have made landfall in South Florida, 20 hit before September 21st, and 21 after.
While bigger storms may be more likely to hit during the first half of the season, it turns out that the most hurricane prone month isn't August or even September.
"From a South Florida perspective, October actually has had more hurricane landfalls than any other month of the season”, says Molleda. “Really it's not until we get past Halloween the hurricane activity in South Florida, tends to go down pretty fast."
Molleda says the reason for this is that by October, the zone of favorable hurricane conditions has shifted farther west. So the warm waters, the low wind shear, and the atmospheric moisture form storms closer to South Florida and, thus, increase the likelihood of South Florida landfall.