Global Hurricane Landfalls 1970 to 2022

Graph of the Week #3

Thanks to the brilliant Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) we have updated the Weinkle et al. dataset of global hurricane landfalls 1970 to 2022. You can see the latest update above. Some summary points:

• With 16 total landfalls and 4 major, 2021 was just about average (averages are 15.6 and 5.0 respectively, medians are 15.5 and 5 respectively)

• There is large variability in global landfalls, with as many as 30 in 1971 and as few as 7 in 1978

• Despite the fact that the North Atlantic sees less than 20% of all landfalls it has historically seen >60% of all global tropical cyclone damage, but we should expect this to decrease as other regions see exposure increase

• The past decade has seen 161 total global landfalls of which 62 were major

• The decade with with most landfalls ended in 1998 with 178

• The decade with the most majors ended in 2008 with 68

• The decade with the fewest landfalls ended in 1984 with 120, fewest majors ended in 1987 with 33

You get a bonus graph this week, below. Reliable records go back in time much further for the North Atlantic and Western North Pacific, to 1945. These two basins experience about 70% of all global landfalls. The longer-term picture shows a much more active period of landfalling hurricanes pre-1970, with a minimum of 4 total landfalls for these two basins occurring in 1978, not long after a maximum of 30 (!) just 12 years earlier.

Please see our paper for details on methods. On Twitter (@RogerPielkeJr) I’ll follow up with several other graphs from our dataset, and I am happy to take requests.