Dec 1, 2008 12:57 am US/Eastern
2008 Hurricane Season Ends Sunday
TALLAHASSEE (AP) ―
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Paloma's high winds and powerful sea surge, which sent waves almost a mile inland, damaged or destroyed nearly 440 homes in the town.
CBS
After relatively quiet hurricane seasons the previous two years, the tropics returned to a more active pattern in 2008.
The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season ends Sunday.
Florida avoided a direct hit from any hurricanes this year, but Tropical Storm Fay caused nearly as much damage. Rain-heavy Fay criss-crossed the state, making landfall four times in Florida in August. It was the first time one storm hit a state that many times.
That's only one of five weather records set this hurricane season. Six consecutive named storms struck the U.S. mainland, something that had not been seen in recorded history: Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike.
It's also the first time a major hurricane, those with winds of at least 111 mph, formed in five consecutive months, July through November.
Bertha spun about for 17 days, making it the longest lived storm in July. A record three major hurricanes smacked Cuba: Gustav, Ike and Paloma.
All in all, state emergency management officials are glad the season is over.
"It turned out to be a very active and deadly hurricane season across the entire region, not only in Florida with 13 fatalities, but across the entire United States and Caribbean nations with some 900 fatalities," said Mike Stone, a spokesman for Florida Emergency Management. "Our lessons learned from the state are really essentially that you can never take any type system for granted. What we saw with tropical storm Fay is a storm that went from South to North eventually with 41 counties being federally declared disaster areas."
11 named storms is average for a hurricane season. Of those 11, an average season sees six hurricanes. There were eight in 2008; five of those were major storms. Three of those were considered "extreme," reaching Category 4, with winds reaching at least 131 mph: Gustav, Ike and Paloma.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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