Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 16, 2012



The 1950 Atlantic hurricane season was the first year in the Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT) in which storms were given names by the United States Air Force from the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. It was an active season with sixteen tropical storms, eleven of which developed into hurricanes. Eight of these hurricanes were intense enough to be classified as major hurricanes&mdash;a denomination reserved for storms that attained sustained winds equivalent to a Category 3 or greater on the present-day Saffir-Simpson scale. The high number of major hurricanes make 1950 the holder of the record for the most systems of such intensity in a single season. The large quantity of strong storms during the year yielded the highest seasonal accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) of the 20th century. The tropical cyclones of the season produced a total of 88 fatalities and $38.5 million in property damage. The first officially named Atlantic hurricane was Hurricane Able (path pictured), which formed on August 12, brushed the North Carolina coastline, and later moved across southeastern Canada. The strongest hurricane of the season, Hurricane Dog, reached the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and caused extensive damage to the Leeward Islands. (Full article...)

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