We finally had our first hurricane this season in the North Atlantic region: Isaias. Isaias formed on October 7 as a tropical storm in the Gulf of America, and made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on October 10 near Destin, Florida.
Paul Homewood of Not a Lot of People Know That collects the relevant data in a post from October 11.
Homewood notes that Isaias represents the latest ever first hurricane for the North Atlantic, at least since the satellite era (1966) has provided full data:
Isaiah was the first Atlantic hurricane of the season, the latest on record. The previous record was Sep 11th in both 2002 and 2013.
So Isaias broke the previous record for latest formation of the first hurricane by almost a full month.
And besides being late, Isaias was also rather unimpressive. Homewood has full data on Isaias’ wind speeds and Category designation:
Having briefly reached Cat 3 hours before landfall, the storm weakened considerably by the time it reached the coast. NWS claim sustained winds of 105 mph, but there is no evidence for this. Surface wind measurements put the highest wind gusts at 118 mph, but sustained winds are always much lower. Gusts at Santa Rosa, for instance, peaked at 116 mph, but NWS confirm sustained winds of 91 mph, which would mean it was only a Cat 1 hurricane at landfall.
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