Hurricanes may hit the coast with a punch, but after a few days of moving inland, the winds are no longer the main concern. This is why the most damage done by a hurricane's winds is always near the coast. Strongest July hurricane: Emily, 2005 (161 mph top sustained winds earliest recorded category 5 hurricane) (previous record: Dennis (150 mph) 2005 Hurricane. In these graphics, you can see these hurricanes lost much of their strength as they moved inland. Hurricane Ivan, below, is a great example of that. Hurricanes are steered by large-scale weather patterns, and the position of High Pressure centers and cold fronts can pull these damaging storms in many different directions during the course of their lifetime. Increasing the search distance to 115 miles will rectify this. Since the default search range is 60 miles, search results for Houston won’t include Hurricane Harvey. Hurricanes feed off the heat contained in tropical ocean waters, and these storms lose their intensity when they move over cooler waters, cross over land, or encounter unfavorable conditions in the atmosphere. For example, Hurricane Harvey (2017) caused catastrophic flooding and over 60 deaths in the Houston area, but this storm track didn’t come within 90 miles of the city. The graphics (provided by NOAA) show the storm tracks and strength throughout the life of each storm. Hurricane Irene from 2011 is also included here, as an example of how a low-to-moderate strength hurricane can still do serious damage long after it makes landfall. Here’s a look at 10 recent major hurricanes (storms of at least Category 3 intensity) to make landfall in the U.S. In the tropics, the storms move with the prevailing easterly winds. The map also reveals the general atmospheric steering influences on hurricanes. It’s been 20 years since Hurricane Andrew struck the coast of Florida as a Category 5 storm and made history as America’s most expensive natural disaster – a record that held until Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In 2004, a rareperhaps uniquetropical cyclone formed in this region, eventually making landfall in Brazil the track of this storm, Hurricane Catarina, stands alone in the South Atlantic.

Hurricane track history