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2017 Hurricane Season Review: The Big 3

November 3, 2020
By WeatherBug's Cody Snell
The 2017 hurricane season was one for the record books and the main reason for that was the Big 3: Harvey, Irma and Maria. These names will likely be retired by the National Hurricane Center and remembered forever as powerful, destructive, unforgiving, and widely impactful. These storms touched the lives of millions from the tiny island of Barbuda to Houston, the fourth most populous city in the United States. 

From strong winds to heavy rain, powerful storm surge, and tornadoes; hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria broke countless records. Together they totaled damage costs in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars and will leave scars in the places they impacted for decades. With so many storms this season, in what seemed to be so very little time, let’s rewind and review each of these three powerful storms.

Hurricane Harvey

The United States had last seen a major hurricane make landfall on October 24, 2005 when Wilma thrashed southwestern Florida. This was the longest major hurricane landfall drought on record and one that was hoped to last longer. Hurricane Harvey broke this streak and many records while dumping a ‘biblical’ amount of rain over southeastern Texas. 

Track and Timeline:
  • Harvey was first labeled as Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine on August 17th, 300 miles east of the Windward Islands of the Caribbean and named a tropical storm 6 hours later. Harvey then moved east into an unfavorable environment for strengthening and became a tropical wave on August 19th. By August 23rd the remnants of Harvey moved northwestward across the Yucatan Peninsula and into a better environment in the southwestern western Gulf of Mexico for re-strengthening.  
  • Harvey quickly strengthened into a hurricane on August 24th as it moved northwest over the warm Gulf of Mexico towards Texas.
  • Hurricane Harvey rapidly intensified on August 25th into a major Category 3 hurricane by 2 p.m. with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, while located 120 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas.
  • Within 4 hours Harvey reached Category 4 strength with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph. The eye was now just 70 miles east of Corpus Christi, Texas.
  • On August 25th at 10 p.m. CDT, Hurricane Harvey made landfall between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph.    
  • The center of Harvey weakened to tropical storm over southeastern Texas, but barely moved.
  • While dumping copious amounts of rain, the center of Harvey moved back into the Gulf of Mexico on August 28th and then made another landfall in Louisiana on August 30th as a tropical storm.    

Historical significances: A storm rainfall total of 60.58 inches was recorded near Nederland, Texas. This broke the record for the greatest amount ever recorded in the Lower 48 from a single storm. The previous record was 48 inches and was also held in Texas, from tropical cyclone Amelia in 1978. The five consecutive days of heavy rainfall led to extreme flooding, especially in and around Houston. The flooding damaged more than 200,000 homes in southeastern Texas and first responders rescued around 10,000 people. There is a total of 82 confirmed fatalities from Hurricane Harvey.

Hurricane Irma

Hurricane Irma was a very long tracked storm across the Atlantic and impacted many Caribbean Islands on its’ way to the Florida peninsula. This storm left nearly no time to reflect on Hurricane Harvey, as it formed while Harvey was still impacting the Gulf Coast.

Track and Timeline:
  • Irma was labeled a tropical storm on August 30th at 11 am AST. Irma rapidly intensified into a major hurricane by August 31st with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, while still over the open Atlantic headed westward towards the Caribbean.
  • Irma experienced fluctuations of intensity until September 4th, when it strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane with 130 mph sustained maximum winds. At this time the center of the storm was still 490 miles east of the Leeward Islands.
  • The strengthening wasn’t finished as Irma reached Category 5 status with whopping maximum sustained winds of 185 mph by September 5th. This intensity remained for 37 straight hours as Irma ripped through the tropical islands of Barbuda, St. Martin, Antigua, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Afterwards, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda described Barbuda as “barely habitable.” Irma also took a close pass, but churned just to the north, of Puerto Rico.  
  • Hurricane Irma slowly weakened, but remained a Category 5 hurricane until 5 a.m. September 8th. The storm passed north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic and slammed into the Turks and Caicos Islands, leaving 14 dead and just over 50,000 residents without power.
  • By the evening of September 8th, Irma re-strengthened into a category 5 and skimmed across the northern coast of Cuba. It then re-emerged south of the Florida Keys as a weak Category 4 on September 10th and took a turn towards the Keys and the Florida Peninsula.
  • Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys as a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph and a minimum central pressure of 929 mb at 9 a.m. EDT on September 10th.
  • By 3:35 p.m. EDT, Irma made another landfall in Florida. This time as a Category 3 hurricane at Marco Island, south of Naples and Fort Myers, with 115 mph maximum sustained winds. Tropical storm force winds were also being felt in Miami.
  • Irma continued to weaken and skirt up the Florida Coast, bringing rain and strong winds to the entire peninsula. Irma weakened to a tropical storm on September 11th and continued its northerly track up Florida’s western coast into the state of Georgia.

Historical significances: Irma went down in history as the strongest storm on record in the Atlantic (outside the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico) with maximum winds of 185 mph. Irma is also tied for first for the longest time (69 hours) spent as a Category 5 hurricane. Irma, with its 185 mph winds, was also the strongest storm to ever hit the Leeward Islands. The previous record was set by the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928 and Hurricane David from 1979 with 160 mph winds.

Hurricane Maria

After several Caribbean Islands were destroyed by Hurricane Irma, another major hurricane was brewing. The already long and devastating 2017 hurricane season got scores more destructive when Maria made a direct hit on Puerto Rico.

Track and Timeline:​
  • Maria started out as Tropical Depression Fifteen on September 16th at 2 p.m. AST. It was then quickly upgraded to a tropical storm 3 hours later, while 620 miles east-southeast of the Lesser Antilles. Maria was upgraded to a hurricane on September 17th and was moving towards the west-northwest and on a collision course with the small island of Dominica.
  • The storm rapidly intensified into a Category 3 hurricane by the morning of September 18th and reached Category 5 status, with 160 mph winds by that evening, right before making landfall over Dominica, a small island located between Guadeloupe and Martinique in the southern Leeward Islands. The Prime Minister called the devastating scene “worse than a war zone.”
  • Maria experienced fluctuations in intensity as it headed from Dominica towards St. Croix and Puerto Rico. It passed just to the southwest of St. Croix of the U.S. Virgin Islands as a Category 5 hurricane with 175 mph sustained winds.
  • At the same time, Maria was taking a beeline towards southeastern Puerto Rico and made landfall on September 20th at 6:35 a.m. AST near Yabucoa as a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds. This dumped extreme amounts of rain over Puerto Rico and brought hurricane force winds to the entire island for 12 straight hours.
  • After leaving Puerto Rico, Maria weakened to a Category 2 hurricane and skimmed the northern coast of the Dominican Republic on a northwesterly path.
  • By September 21st , Maria was once again a major Category 3 hurricane and continued northwest towards the Turks and Caicos.
  • After skimming the eastern Turks and Caicos with hurricane force winds, Maria turned northward and slowly weakened while passing off the coast of North Carolina. This brought heavy surf and tropical storm force winds to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
  • By September 26th Maria was downgraded to a tropical storm and raced off to the northeast and out to sea.   

Historical significances: Hurricane Maria is now known as the tenth-most intense, with a minimum central pressure of 908 mb, Atlantic hurricane on record and the worst natural disaster on record in Dominica. However, Maria will be most remembered for the damage it did across the entire island of Puerto Rico. Maria is unofficially the costliest natural disaster in Puerto Rican history with $50 billion worth of damage and has been named responsible for at least 55 deaths on the Caribbean island, with dozens still missing. Maria also destroyed approximately 80 percent of Puerto Rico’s agriculture territory. The powerful hurricane destroyed the power grid and left all 3.4 million residents without electricity. 

​Image: Hurricane Irma sateliite image while directly over Barbuda on September 6th (UM-Wisconsin/CIMSS​)