Overview

The end of the year is closing in rapidly and this blog provides a wrap up of the 2023 US wildfire and tornado seasons and also the 2023 tropical season in the Atlantic Basin.

2023 US Wildfire Season

The news has been quite good this year with respect to the total number of acres burned on US soil due to wildfire activity. In fact, the total acreage burned this year is under 3 million (through 12/18) which is far below the 10-year average of nearly 7 million from 2013-2022 and the lowest since 1998.

…2023 Tropical Season in the Atlantic Basin

While the 2023 hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin was well above-normal in terms of the number of named storms, the news was not all bad with respect to the overall tropical season. Other important metrics were actually quite close to climatological averages, and the best news of all was that the vast majority of the named storms spent most, if not all, of their time harmlessly out over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, despite the active season in 2023, the only US landfalling hurricane was Hurricane Idalia which made landfall as a category-3 hurricane on August 30th near Keaton Beach, Florida. In addition, Tropical Storm Ophelia made landfall as a strong tropical storm with 70 mph winds on Emerald Isle, North Carolina on September 23rd. Hurricane Lee made landfall as a post-tropical cyclone in Nova Scotia, Canada, on September 16th and swells generated by Lee caused dangerous surf and rip currents along the entire U.S. Atlantic coast.