North Carolina

Lore & Background

The source article provides historical data on tropical cyclones affecting North Carolina. Pre-1900, 139 cyclones affected the state, resulting in over 775 direct fatalities. Between 1900 and 1949, 75 cyclones affected the state, causing 53 fatalities and about $393 million in damage (2020 USD). From 1950 to 1979, 79 cyclones affected the state, causing 37 fatalities and about $4 billion in damage (2020 USD). From 1980 to the present, 120 cyclones affected the state, causing over $10 billion in damage (2010 USD), 77 direct fatalities, and at least 44 indirect casualties. The strongest storm to strike the state was Hurricane Hazel on October 15, 1954, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane. The most recent tropical cyclone to affect North Carolina was Hurricane Debby in August 2024. The most recent tropical cyclone to make landfall in North Carolina was Tropical Storm Ophelia, making landfall near Emerald Isle on September 23, 2023.

In Their Own Story

The sky over Raleigh is the color of a bruise, that deep indigo that comes just before a September storm breaks. Inside PNC Arena the air is thick and electric, the kind of charged stillness that settles before the puck drops. A kid in a faded 2006 jersey—his father's jersey, stretched too big over his shoulders—presses his forehead against the glass in the lower bowl. Across the ice, a Hurricanes forward skates in slow circles, stick dragging a thin white line in the fresh paint, the sound a low whisper against the hum of twenty thousand voices. The Zamboni's headlights sweep the ice in slow arcs, and for a moment the whole arena is just light and silence and the smell of cold air. Then the horn sounds. The glass shakes. The kid's father grabs his shoulder and says, in that low Carolina drawl, 'There he is.' And the storm, the real one, is still out there beyond the parking lot, but nobody inside is looking at the sky anymore.

Reader's Guide

The source article notes that Cape Hatteras is most affected by storms within the state, though Cape Lookout and Cape Fear are also regularly affected. After Southern Florida, Cape Hatteras has the lowest return period for hurricanes in the country. As the Outer Banks are a narrow strip of low-lying land, hurricanes occasionally leave portions of the land partially or fully submerged. Additionally, the remnants of inland tropical cyclones have produced flooding and landslides in the state's western region. Tropical cyclones have affected North Carolina in every month between May and December; about 35 percent of the storms struck the state in September, and 80 percent affected the state between August and October.

Did You Know?

• An estimated 17.5 percent of all North Atlantic tropical cyclones have affected North Carolina.
• A tropical cyclone makes landfall along the North Carolina coastline about once every four years, according to research between 1883 and 1996.
• Hurricane Florence in September 2018 remains North Carolina's wettest hurricane, dropping nearly three feet of rain.
• Hurricane Hazel in 1954 was the strongest storm to strike the state, making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane.