In this geocolor image captured by GOES-16 and released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Hurricane Irma, a potentially catastrophic category 5 hurricane, moves westward, Tuesday morning, Sept. 5, 2017, in the Atlantic Ocean toward the Leeward Islands. This image was captured as daylight moves into the area, right, with nighttime features on the left side of the image. Hurricane Irma grew into a dangerous Category 5 storm, the most powerful seen in the Atlantic in over a decade, and roared toward islands in the northeast Caribbean Tuesday on a path that could eventually take it to the United States. (NOAA via AP)
The 2022 hurricane season is no longer dead as a doornail. But there’s still not much to worry about out there.
Even in such an unusual Atlantic hurricane season, you’d expect for there to be some activity on Labor Day. Indeed today, Hurricane Danielle is over the North Atlantic, where sea surface temperatures have been remarkably warm of late. Thankfully, it is missing all landmasses. And Tropical Storm Earl is located a couple hundred miles north of the Virgin Islands. Earl has struggled to strengthen thanks to dry air and hostile upper level winds, but it will soon encounter a more favorable environment and likely strengthen into this year’s second hurricane. Bermuda sits in the cone of concern.
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Since Labor Day falls on the first Monday of September, near the peak of the Atlantic season, the holiday has seen its share of infamous hurricanes. The one that bears the holiday’s name — the Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 — still ranks as the strongest tropical cyclone to hit the United States. It hit the Middle Florida Keys with sustained winds of 185 mph and a storm surge up to 20 feet deep, forever truncating the Florida East Coast Railway’s Over-Sea Railroad (which used to reach Key West) and killing hundreds.
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On Labor Day weekend just three years ago, we were really sweating it out here in South Florida as Category 5 Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the Bahamas. The 2019 cyclone tied the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane as the strongest Atlantic hurricane landfall on record when it struck Great Abaco with sustained winds of 185 mph and then went on to swamp Grand Bahama, where it sat for days. South Florida was lucky to see the massive hurricane turn north.
We had a pretty forgettable Labor Day tropical storm in 2018. Tropical Storm Gordon hit Tavernier in the Florida Keys and mainland South Florida in Flamingo, part of Everglades National Park. Sustained winds never reached tropical storm strength over land, but six inches of rain was nothing to sneeze at.
2022 HURRICANE SEASON
South Florida’s Labor Day 2017 would’ve been much more enjoyable if at 5 p.m. on that Monday, the National Hurricane Center hadn’t placed Miami in Major Hurricane Irma’s cone of concern. Irma was able to sustain Category 5 intensity for 3 days — the second longest ever in the Atlantic — and struck fear for everyone in its path. Six days later on Sunday, Sept. 10, Irma made landfall in the Lower Florida Keys as a Category 4 system. Besides devastation in portions of the Keys, Irma’s impacts extended well beyond its eye, including wind gusts to 100 mph and a storm surge of up to five feet in the Miami area.
While not a South Florida storm, 2016’s Hurricane Hermine was also a Labor Day Weekend system of importance. It made landfall on the Friday leading into the holiday weekend in northern Florida. Hermine was memorable because no hurricane had made landfall in the Sunshine State since October 2005’s Hurricane Wilma — a remarkable 11-year stretch.
In terms of tropical threats, Labor Day this year in South Florida is a relaxing one. Danielle and Earl are of no concern to Florida, and the only other system being monitored by the National Hurricane Center on Labor Day 2022 — located near the Cabo Verde islands — is expected to recurve into the north Atlantic before ever threatening the Caribbean or the United States.
