The 1972 Atlantic hurricane season had only four fully tropical named storms – the fewest since 1930. It officially began on June 1, 1972, and lasted until November 30, 1972. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin. The first storm, Subtropical Storm Alpha, developed on May 23 off the Southeast United States and struck Florida, causing minor damage and two fatalities. Although several other tropical depressions developed, only Tropical Depression Five is known to have affected land.
The most significant storm of the season was Hurricane Agnes, which at the time was among the ten costliest United States hurricanes. After brushing the western tip of Cuba, the hurricane made landfall on the Florida Panhandle. It caused at least $2.1 billion (1972 USD) in damage and 128 fatalities, mostly from inland flooding in Pennsylvania and New York. The strongest hurricane of the season was Betty, which reached peak winds of 105 mph (165 km/h) while west of the Azores. Tropical Storm Carrie passed just offshore of Massachusetts, causing heavy rainfall, resulting in four fatalities, but only $1.78 million (1972 USD) in damage.
The remaining tropical systems – Dawn, Charlie, and Delta – caused no significant effects on land. A strong El Niño kept hurricane activity at a minimum, with only four tropical storms, four subtropical storms, and three hurricanes. It was also one of only four hurricane seasons since 1944 to have no major hurricanes – the other years being the 1968 season, the 1986 season, and the 1994 season. In addition, the season was the first to name subtropical storms, using the Phonetic Alphabet, rather than the standard naming list.
Read more about 1972 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Storm Names
Famous quotes containing the words atlantic, hurricane and/or season:
“They commonly celebrate those beaches only which have a hotel on them, not those which have a humane house alone. But I wished to see that seashore where man’s works are wrecks; to put up at the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is land-lord as well as sea-lord, and comes ashore without a wharf for the landing; where the crumbling land is the only invalid, or at best is but dry land, and that is all you can say of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Thought and beauty, like a hurricane or waves, should not know conventional, delimited forms.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairyland. The world seemed decked for some holiday or prouder pageantry ... like a green lane into a country maze, at the season when fruit-trees are in blossom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)