Hurricane Irene & the Potential Rarity of a Georgia Landfall

As I alluded to in my previous post, the southeast needs to monitor Hurricane Irene. However the same holds true for the Mid-Atlantic as well since heavy rains and storm surge may be possible this weekend or early next week as it continues northward. In conversations with a couple of other meteorologists, I could not recall a hurricane making a direct landfall on the Georgia coastline in my 15+ years of tracking tropical storms and hurricanes. Turns out I was right. In fact, it hasn't happened in my lifetime. Here is an excerpt from a story posted online by The Augusta Chronicle last year in reference to Hurricane Earl:

Here is some background on Georgia's Hurricane History:
- Aug. 27, 1881: A major hurricane hits the coast, killing 700 people.
- Aug. 27-28, 1893: A major hurricane hits the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, killing 1,000 to 2,500 people and leaving 30,000 homeless.
- Aug. 31, 1898: The last Category 3 hurricane to date to make landfall in Georgia strikes Savannah, with 179 deaths.
- 1911: A Category 2 hurricane hits Savannah, killing 17 people.
- 1940: A Category 2 hurricane hits Savannah, killing 50 people.
- 1947: A Category 2 hurricane hits Savannah, killing one person.
- 1979: Category 2 Hurricane David hits Savannah, causing minor damage.

Source: Georgia Emergency Management Agency

 Source: http://chronicle.augusta.com/content/blog-post/rob-pavey/2010-09-01/georgia-rarely-gets-hit-hurricanes-here-s-why

So that's 7 Georgia hurricanes in the last 130 years (average of 1 every 18.5 years) with Hurricane David being the last one in 1979. That's 32 years ago, which means Georgia is past due for a hurricane to make landfall. Interestingly, David's track (Source: Wikipedia) looks fairly similar to Irene's future track shown in my previous post.