AccuWeather Global Weather Center - The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season was the second hectic season in a row following the record-breaking 2020 season, with new storms spinning up in rapid fashion and very few breaks between each new system. However, due in part to an almost entirely inactive homestretch, the Atlantic hurricane season actually wound up slightly below average in terms of the total number of hurricanes and above average in terms of the total number of named storms.
AccuWeather meteorologists predicted the 2021 season nearly to a T back in March, calling for 16 to 20 named systems, between seven and 10 hurricanes, and three to five major hurricanes. By the end of the season, which officially ends on Nov. 30, this prediction was nearly spot-on with 21 named storms, seven hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
For the seventh straight year, the first storm of the year spun up before the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which begins on June 1. This long-term trend has raised some questions about whether or not the official start of the hurricane season should be moved to earlier in the year, a debate that is still ongoing.
Tropical Storm Ana formed on May 22, a precursor of a spell of early-season storms that was about to come.
One of the most memorable aspects of the 2021 season will not be the storms that hit the Gulf Coast, but those that walloped the Northeast.
The first was Hurricane Henri, which was something meteorologists refer to as a "home brew" system because it started as a complex of thunderstorms over the middle of the U.S. The thunderstorms then traversed the eastern U.S., organized over the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean and eventually evolved into a Category 1 hurricane.
Henri then took an unusual path as it circled back around to the U.S. and threatened to make landfall as a hurricane. After a close call with Long Island, New York, Henri made landfall in Rhode Island as a strong tropical storm on Aug. 22. Henri was the first tropical system to make landfall in Rhode Island since 1991 and soaked residents and vacationers alike all across the Northeast. More details
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