A Brief Climatology of Tropical Cyclones
in Texas

Since we cannot prevent hurricanes, the next best thing is to know what they can do and be prepared. Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it, which can be deadly during hurricane season.

Frequency.  The frequency of hurricanes along any 50-mile segment of the Texas coast is one about every six years. Annual probabilities of a strike along a 50-mile segment of the coast range from 31% at Sabine Pass to 41% at Matagorda Bay.  Texas just ended its longest hurricane-free period, which lasted 10 years between the landfalls of Jerry (October 1989) and Bret (August 1999).  In contrast, one or more hurricanes affected the coast each year from 1885 to 1888. In 1886, four hurricanes struck the Texas coast with the first and last both hitting Sabine Pass.

Since the Sixteenth Century, hurricanes and tropical storms have struck Texas in the time frame between June 2nd and November 5th. The following is a list of tropical cyclones that have struck or come close (within 50 miles of) the Texas coast since 1871. They are divided up by their month of occurrence. This list does not include storms that strike Mexico like Gilbert or those that cross Mexico from the East Pacific Ocean, like Lidia in 1991, mainly because Pacific storms were rarely documented prior to 1966.
 

The relative lack of storms prior to 1829 is due to sparse population across the study area and few surviving records.  Many ships that may have encountered these tempests took their encounters with them to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.  The following chart lists storm strikes from 1851 onward, by decade.
 

Pressure.  The stronger a hurricane gets, the lower the storm's central pressure becomes; it is a direct relationship.  Below is a list of the ten lowest pressures measured from hurricanes across Texas.
 

Winds.  Some of the strongest hurricanes to affect the coast of the United States have hit the shores of Texas.  Below is a chart showing the highest ten wind gusts from hurricanes that have passed through the state.
 

To page 2