This is a list of all known or suspected Atlantic hurricanes before 1600. Although most storms likely went unrecorded, and many records have been lost, recollections of hurricane occurrences survive from some sufficiently populated coastal areas, and rarely, ships at sea that survived the tempests.
Observation data for years before 1492 is completely unavailable because most natives of North America lacked written languages to keep records in the
pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...
era, and most records in written
Mesoamerican languages either do not survive or have not been deciphered and translated. Scientists now regard even data from the early years of the Columbian era as suspicious because
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
scientists and sailors made no distinction between tropical cyclones and extratropical systems, and incomplete because European
exploration of North America The exploration of North America by European sailors and geographers was an effort by major European powers to map and explore the continent with the goal of economic, religious and military expansion. The combative and rapid nature of this explorat ...
and
European colonization of the Americas
During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short t ...
reached only scattered areas in the 16th century.
However,
palaeotempestological research allows reconstruction of pre-historic hurricane activity trends on timescales of centuries to millennia. A theory has been postulated that an anti-phase pattern exists between the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...
coast and the
East Coast of the United States.
During the quiescent periods, a more northeasterly position of the
Azores High
The Azores High also known as North Atlantic (Subtropical) High/Anticyclone or the Bermuda-Azores High, is a large subtropical semi-permanent centre of high atmospheric pressure typically found south of the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean, at the Ho ...
would result in more hurricanes being steered towards the Atlantic coast. During the hyperactive period, more hurricanes were steered towards the Gulf coast as the Azores High—controlled by the
North Atlantic oscillation
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a weather phenomenon over the North Atlantic Ocean of fluctuations in the difference of atmospheric pressure at sea level (SLP) between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High. Through fluctuations in the ...
—was shifted to a more southwesterly position near the Caribbean. Few major hurricanes struck the Gulf coast during 3000 BC–1400 BC and again during the most recent millennium; these quiescent intervals were separated by a hyperactive period during 1400 BC and AD 1000, when catastrophic hurricanes frequently struck the Gulf coast, and their landfall frequencies increased by a factor of three to five.
On the Atlantic coast, probability of landfalling hurricanes has doubled in the recent millennium compared to the one and a half millennia before.
Using sediment samples from
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
, the Gulf coast and the Atlantic coast from Florida to New England,
Michael E. Mann ''et al.'' (2009) found consistent evidence of a peak in Atlantic tropical cyclone activity during the
Medieval Warm Period followed by a subsequent lull in activity.
Systems
– only
paleotempestological evidence
See also
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List of Atlantic hurricanes
Lists of Atlantic hurricanes, or tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, are organized by the properties of the hurricane or by the location most affected.
By property
* List of Atlantic hurricane seasons
*List of Atlantic hurricane records
*Li ...
*
Atlantic hurricane season
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Paleotempestology
Paleotempestology is the study of past tropical cyclone activity by means of geological proxies as well as historical documentary records. The term was coined by American meteorologist Kerry Emanuel.
The usual approach in paleotempestology is ...
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pre-1600 Atlantic Hurricane Seasons
*16th century