2008 was a damaging, costly year for hurricanes

Although it didn't rival 2005 for devastation, the hurricane season that ends officially on Sunday will end up being one of the nation's most damaging and costliest on record.

Insured damage from Gustav and Ike, the two biggest storms to affect the United States, could top $20 billion, according to AIR Worldwide Corp., a catastrophe risk-modeling company.

Hurricane payouts for the National Flood Insurance program, which already had owed the U.S. Treasury $17 billion, are expected to range from $3 billion to $6 billion. That would make 2008 the second-largest loss year on record after 2005, the year of Katrina.

In all, 16 named tropical storms - those with sustained winds of at least 39 m.p.h. - formed in the Atlantic Basin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday in releasing its annual summary.

Of those, eight became full-blown hurricanes, with top winds of 75 m.p.h. or better. Those numbers put 2008 in the top five in both categories in the 64-year period of reliable records.

The seasonal outlooks by NOAA and other forecasters had called for above-average activity. Gerry Bell, a NOAA lead forecaster, said 2008 had been typical of an active hurricane period that began in 1995 that could last from 10 to 25 more years.

Historically, hurricanes have alternated with active and lull periods in 25- to 40-year cycles, researchers say.

Among the favorable storm factors this year were the continued warm sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, which were about 1 degree Fahrenheit above normal.

"There's no indication that the active era is coming to a close," said Bell. "We can expect more hurricanes, more hurricane strikes."

While forecasters have made progress in predicting overall activity, they still can't say where storms will hit in any given season. This year, hurricanes picked on Cuba, hit by an unprecedented three major hurricanes, and the northwest Gulf Coast, where Gustav and Ike made landfall. Gustav was blamed for more than 120 deaths.

Bell said the 2008 storms were driven by a sprawling and persistent area of high pressure over the North Atlantic. Winds circulated clockwise around highs, and areas to the south experienced west-to-east winds. Those are the winds that steered the storms toward the Caribbean and the Gulf.

The season produced a variety of other anomalous events, NOAA said. For example, it marked the first time that six consecutive named storms made landfall in the United States. One of them, Fay, made landfall in Florida four times. The season isn't supposed to begin until June 1, but the first one, Arthur, was born in late May.

"We had a lot of activity," Bell said. "The biggest hope is that people understand that we are in an active area. The coastlines have been built up tremendously in the last 20 years. We're seeing the potential for so many more people being affected."