Hurricane Tracks by USA County

Analysis of historical hurricane tracks by county of the United States. Tropical storm and tropical depression tracks are also included. Analysis done using ArcGIS Pro (Esri) software, with the main geoprocessing tools used being Dissolve and Spatial Join.
An interesting result is that the highest five or so counts were not highly clustered. Three very widely-dispersed coastal locations kept coming up, including coastal Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana.
Limitations: Does not consider swath size of the storms and hurricane effects can extend well beyond the counties that the track crosses. Counties are not all the same size, so wide counties perpendicular to the track direction are more likely to be crossed.
Keywords: Geography Viz, United States Geography, Hurricane Tracks, Tropical Storm Tracks, Tropical Depression Tracks, Counties, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana
Map projection: USA Contiguous Albers Equal Area Conic
Data sources:
USA 2020 Census County/Parish boundaries of the United States from Esri:
www.arcgis.com/home/item.html...
Hurricane track feature layer from Federal_User_CommunityTrack using data from the NOAA National Hurricane Center HURDAT2 and NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information IBTrACS data sets: www.arcgis.com/home/item.html...
Esri Light Gray Base basemap

[@geogviz]

An interesting result is that the highest five or so counts were not highly clustered. Three very widely-dispersed coastal locations kept coming up, including coastal Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana.

[@RWBHere]

Thanks. It will be interesting to add data for more recent years, when it becomes available. My guess is that the patterns will stay pretty much the same, but that more of these severe weather events reach the less prone areas. Can you make another video showing tornadoes?

[@jlpack62]

Monroe is a long county of islands that stretches through the belly of the warm waters of the Gulf and the Atlantic. It's no wonder why it gets hit by storms more often than most places.

[@RideOfPablo]

underrated channel

[@darylkupper9339]

You should do something like this for other natural disasters such as Tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, but each in their own separate videos.

[@someguy5180]

I lived in Sarasota and Bradenton counties for about 10 years. It always seemed like we had near misses every year. It is very interesting to see this on a map as these counties are a lighter shade of blue despite being surrounded by counties that received many direct hits. Excellent video!

[@georgeheld1901]

As someone from Portland, I'm surprised at how many hit Northern Maine, not necessarily a place I think of when thinking about areas that get hit often by hurricanes

[@snigwithasword1284]

I noticed Maine too. I think it's just because Aroostook County is so broad.

[@georgeheld1901]

@@snigwithasword1284 broad AND right in the path of the jet stream I guess. I remember hurricane Irene giving us like 4-5 foot waves back in 2011 but I feel Nor’easters are more of a thing here than Hurricanes

[@texasyojimbo]

Seems like the most useful data for, say, risk assessment would be to do some sort of weighted count, like 5 points per hurricane, 2 points for tropical storms and 1 point for tropical depressions. Also as others implied the size (in land area) of the county kind of matters. I think the reason Polk County is so high is because it is the 4th largest county in Florida, and a lot of the nearby counties are a bit more compact (Orange and Hillsborough counties are about half the size in square miles). (Miami-Dade is also quite large in terms of area relative to most Florida counties). Probably would be good to divide the number of hits by square miles if one were assessing absolute risk.

[@chillmolder]

The problem with that is counties not directly hit are impacted. For instance, Ian was not just a disaster for SWFL but it caused so much flooding in central Florida. I didn't know the extent until reading about the stories in rural counties like Desoto County. It's perhaps best to look at the areas of watersheds affected. That probably provides the best view at risks due to not just rainfall but the storm surge. It would also add evaluating rivers like how Myakka and Peace Rivers didn't just flood but increased flooding days later. We have the data.

[@texasyojimbo]

@@chillmolder excellent point, and it is actually counties nearby the exact track of the eye that can get worse damage. For example, Houston, Texas (Harris County) is going to be more seriously impacted if the eye hits near San Luis Pass and tracks over Brazoria and Fort Bend County because that puts the Houston Ship Channel and Buffalo Bayou on the right-front quadrant, with storm surge pushing up toward downtown.

[@heidiw8406]

Back in 2004 three hurricanes went through Polk county. They seem to pass from east or west or north right through Polk county. I lived in Hillsborough county, just west of Polk, for over 50 years and the last time that county was hit with a hurricane was in the 1920's.

[@uprightape100]

Funny how the West Coast is protected by that harsh, cold frickin water that we who venture in have to endure. Thanks, cold water.

[@loganb.1984]

I lived in Polk County Florida for over 3 years and we never got hit a hurricane even though we are comfortably in the top 5. I guess we were lucky.

[@hebneh]

Hawaii is not included here but it gets hit by hurricanes as well.

[@zach2382]

Rarely

[@taloisi]

im interested in how far some of these hurricanes stayed hurricanes. There's a redline that goes at least 100 miles from Connecticut into southern Vermont. what's the farthest inland that a hurricane has maintained its status?

[@night_wolf6621]

I want to know more about the hurricane track that went through the middle of Wisconsin up through the U.P and Canada

[@zach2382]

Oh, those are just the remnants

[@darmorel549]

Anything in that area is remnants of storms. For instance, the paths that can be seen near southern Michigan and the western part of Ohio are ones like Hurricane Ike in 2008. Which caused slightly over 1 billion in damages to Ohio when all said and done, do to the area getting 70+ mph (120 kph, or category 1 level) wind gust for several hours. Ike path would also go into Cananada, along with most of these lines.

[@michaelalexander9497]

Very late to this but it would be interesting to normalize by county land area. Some counties (Polk/Palm Beach/Dade) in Florida are quite large ones, leading to higher probability of encompassing a storm track. The same could be said for some of the counties in Maine, which are quite large relative to what looks to the eye to be the average for other eastern coastal states.

[@alexanderzagula1994]

Is this in arcgis?

[@GeoHuman.]

Why are 2 counties in Georgia (I think the 2 counties for Athens) missed by hurricanes/tropical storms? They're almost completely white compared to the area around them

[@MrCubFan415]

As someone who lives in Iowa, what are the three trails that pass through Iowa?

[@Unisoda]

one of them is tropical storm cristobal from 2020

[@MrCubFan415]

@@Unisoda Turns out I was thinking of this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2020_Midwest_derecho

[@Nscap]

Lol I live in Monroe County

[@menacenameddrako2227]

only came to see alaska and hawaii and its not on😕 here

[@zach2382]

Because those to don’t get hurricanes