Climate Research News » Climate Science: No Significant Trends in Tropical Cyclones Since 1690

The most comprehensive and longest document-based time series of tropical cyclone activity for any area of the world is presented for the Atlantic and Caribbean region of the Lesser Antilles for the years 1690–2007. Newspaper accounts, ships’ logbooks, meteorological journals, and other document sources were used to create this new data set, and a new methodology was applied for classifying historical tropical cyclone intensity. This compilation estimates the position and intensity of each tropical cyclone that passes through the 61.5°W meridian from the coast of South America northward through 25.0°N. The additional resources used here fills in gaps in the HURDAT record, which undercounts tropical storms and hurricanes by 28% (7%) in the years 1851–1898 (1899–1930) over populated islands from 12 to 18°N. The numbers of tropical cyclones show no trends that were significant at the 5% level. The time span 1968–1977 was probably the most inactive period since the islands were settled in the 1620s and 1630s.