About Hurricane History

Hurricane History is a historical reference for hurricane and tropical storm activity near U.S. coastal places. Start from a state and browse its places, or search for a place by name and see its real storm history — how many storms have passed nearby, how strong they were, and when.

Why we built it

Hurricane history for a specific town or city is scattered across raw government archives, news archives, and general-interest weather sites. Hurricane History gathers the real historical record into one browsable, place-by-place guide, computed directly from NOAA’s official storm-track database.

This is a historical record, not a forecast

Every number on this site describes storms that have already happened. We do not forecast storms, estimate risk, or give safety or evacuation advice. Where we show a “return interval,” it is a plain historical average — years of record divided by occurrence count — not a prediction. See our methodology for the full detail.

Where our data comes from

Storm records are drawn from NOAA’s HURDAT2 best-track database, a public-domain federal dataset covering the Atlantic and Northeast/Central Pacific basins. Place coordinates are matched against the U.S. Census Bureau’s Gazetteer files. We do not estimate or invent a coordinate, storm count, or storm strength — every figure traces back to these two sources.

Who is behind it

Hurricane History is built and operated by Purcell Analytics. We build data-driven reference sites that answer a specific question well. You can reach the team at hello@hurricanehistory.co.