Where the hurricane record lives

When a tropical storm or hurricane threatens Florida, the official forecast comes from one place: the National Hurricane Center in Miami, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service.¹ The center issues the advisories, forecast tracks, watches and warnings that emergency managers, insurers and residents act on.

During a storm

Each advisory gives a storm’s position, its maximum sustained winds, its movement and the forecast for the days ahead, along with the cone that shows the probable path of the storm’s center. The cone describes where the center is likely to go, not the size of the storm; dangerous wind, rain and storm surge can reach well outside it.

The center also issues storm surge watches and warnings and maps of where surge flooding is possible, often the most important information for coastal property.

After a storm

In the months after a storm, the center publishes a Tropical Cyclone Report on it: its final account of the storm’s track, intensity, landfall and impacts, based on all the data gathered after the fact. It also maintains HURDAT2, the historical best-track database of past Atlantic storms.¹

Those records matter well beyond the storm itself. Insurers, lenders, builders and local governments draw on the hurricane record when they price risk, set building standards and plan for the next Atlantic season, which runs officially from June 1 to November 30.

The Economy desk will cite the center’s own products when it reports on storms and housing, and keep a copy of each one it uses in the source library.