Are Gulf Landfalling Hurricanes Getting Stronger?

Abstract

Recent predictions of increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin, as well as explosive coastal population growth, have prompted a study of the trends in quantity and intensity of U.S. landfalling hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Gulf of Mexico hurricane landfalls from Cape Sable, Florida, to Brownsville, Texas, are binned by decade from 1886 to 1995 to determine whether gulf hurricane landfalls are becoming more or less frequent. From these bins, subsets of intense hurricanes (sustained winds of 96 kt or more) per decade are also made. The results show that there is no sign of an increase of hurricane frequency or intensity in the Gulf of Mexico at this time