How come hurricanes never seem to slam directly into the Georgia or South Carolina coast anymore? The last I recall off the top of my head is Hugo, and Savannah hasn’t had a direct hit in decades that I am aware of. All potential storms seem to hang that sharp right at the last minute and graze the Outer Banks most of the time.
Partly, it’s just the luck of the draw. Here’s a (horrendously designed) map showing all hurricane landfalls from 1950-1994. Note that you wouldn’t have asked this question in, say, 1960; Hurricanes Gracie, Cindy, Able, and Hazel had all hit South Carolina within the past decade.
As to why storms tend to hang a sharp right at the last minute, Wikipedia claims that it’s because of “the high pressure that typically occurs over the eastern Atlantic in late summer.” (See point #3 in the “Typical Tracks” section.) This just turns the question into “Why is there high pressure over the eastern Atlantic in late summer?”, though.
Another hurricane question: does a hurricane leave a trail of cooler water after it passes? If the storm is powered by warm water and it uses it to move a lot of air around, it seems to me that it would leave a wide swath of water that’s had some of it’s heat removed. Also, would this trail of slightly cooler water diminish the impact of any subsequent storms that pass over it?
It seems as if most storms are far enough apart that the water would have a chance to re-heat if the previous storm did cool it. If the storms are too close together, they usually seem to merge of the upper level wind currents shear one apart, from what I have observed, but IANAM.
A hurricane, esp. a slow moving one, will cause upwelling of colder water below the surface, thus lowering the sea surface temps at its previous locations.
But as to the OP, first SC does get its share of canes, and Hugo was not the last one: Floyd and Gaston come to mind. Although Floyd actually made landfall just north of the SC line, it caused tremendous rains in Horry county and a mass evacuation from Charleston that created a real traffic mess. This link states they are “irregular visitors” to Georgia and SC, but as to SC, they are not that irregular. As to Georgia, esp. the area south of Savannah, and northeastern Fla., it is the geography. Steering currents are such as to cause tropical storms to veer to the northeast as they bump into the air masses coming off the coast. The Outer Banks gets hit quite frequently, as it juts out into the ocean.
As to the high pressure over the Atlantic, this is known as the “Bermuda High” and is a typical summertime scenario.
Hurricane Babe?
Damn, the drugs just flowed like water back in the '70s, didn’t they?
ETA: I will never hear that Styx song from 1979 the same way again.
Aside: Wow. Hurricane Donna made four separate landfalls in 1960, all at category 3 or 4.
I guess I should have been more clear…I meant a direct hit. I guess you could count Gaston, but I mean a storm that makes a bee-line for the GA or SC coast with a direct hit, and not on a NNW track that makes it curve close to the landfall.
The “County Strikes” layer on this map does a good job of showing you when & where hurricanes have hit various regions. The four hurricanes that have landed near Chatham County, Georgia (home to Savannah) since 1900 were: [ul][li]Hurricane David (1979).[]Hurricane Nine (1947). []The Georgia-South Carolina Hurricane of 1940.[*]Hurricane Three (1911).[/ul]The last two on this list did make a beeline for the Georgia coast, rather than the “hit Florida, skip back out to sea, land again” MO of the more recent two. So it has been known to happen, but it’s not at all common.[/li]
Note also that Glynn County, GA (home to Brunswick) has not been affected by a hurricane making landfall there, at least not since 1900.
Hugo made a beeline for the SC coast and made landfall near Sullivan’s Island, which is a town abutting Charleston to the north. It continued inward for over 100 miles as a hurricane and even caused severe damage to Columbia, SC, over 120 miles inland.
one can see the signature of a large storm in the upper ocean temperature records for several days. Note that is the upper ocean, not the SST or skin temperature. The temperature viewed by satellite is the skin temperature-the upper 1mm of the water. It can be anywhere from 0 to 1.0+degC different from the mixed layer temperature. Observers have learned to compensate with their measurements. While usually warmer, this temperature layer is so thin it doesn’t contribute much to the energy budget. The more gradual warming of the upper ocean continues, but that takes days to weeks to show a significant effect. The storms pull colder water up into the mixed layer and that can significantly reduce the available energy for subsequent storms.
shudder…
Hugo just about exactly followed the Cooper river straight up into Lakes Moultrie and then Marion, and left me stranded for many weeks before we could get the roads clear enough to get out.
Personally, I much prefer them to hang a right and avoid SC entirely myself.
The first time I lived in Florida was in Fort Myers in 1966; people were still talking about Donna. IIRC Donna basically parked itself over Fort Myers and really overstayed her welcome; she did tremendous damage in Lee County.