The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through November and, historically, Bermuda has experienced a damaging hurricane approximately once every 6 or 7 years. Recent cyclones that made landfall include Fay and Gonzalo, which hit the Islands days apart in 2014.
To learn more about hurricanes, check out these 5 fast facts:
- Hurricanes can have wind speeds of over 160 mph!
- The word hurricane comes from the Taino Native American word “hurucane," which means “evil spirit of the wind”.
- The difference between a tropical storm and a hurricane is wind speed – while tropical storms typically have winds of up to 47 mph, hurricane wind speeds reach at least 74 mph.
- Every second, a large hurricane releases the same amount of energy as 10 atomic bombs.
- The most expensive hurricane to make landfall was Hurricane Katrina, which touched down in Louisiana as a Category 5 storm in 2005. The damages cost an estimated $108 billion.
