Way back on June 1, the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season kicked off. Today, we can close the book on what was an average season in the tropics.
The first named storm of the season, Tropical Storm Alex, formed on June 5 and the final one, Hurricane Nicole, dissipated on Nov. 11.
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All told, there were 14 named storms, 8 hurricanes and 2 major hurricanes this season. This compares favorably to the 30-year averages.
The strongest storms this season were Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, both Category 4′s. More than $53 billion dollars worth of damage was inflicted by tropical systems this year, which ranks sixth on record.
This was the first hurricane season since 2019 that didn’t exhaust the entire naming list. Seven names were unused and will show up again on the list in 2028.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) will decide at a later date which storm names will be retired from this year’s list, but you can bet that Ian will be one of them.
As in previous years, Southwest and Central Virginia received remnant rain from tropical systems: Ian and Nicole. In fact, nearly 15% of Roanoke’s total rainfall year-to-date came from those two storms.
We also had a few tornado warnings as Nicole’s remnants moved through, but no confirmed twisters.