Hurricane Intelligence Florida
Hurricane Intelligence Florida: Florida impacts and ENSO, 1851 to present. A JnGmedia property.

Fingerprint matching | 128 storms | 1851-2025

Analog Finder

Two ways in: compare a real storm's track against history, or describe a hypothetical scenario. Analogs are context, never forecasts.

Compare a Real Storm's Track

Pick a storm to see which others ran a similar path, scored two genuinely different ways: how close the tracks actually ran to each other near Florida, and how each storm handled the Florida Straits / Cuba shelf on approach, a narrow shallow shelf that tends to interrupt intensification and produce more erratic short-term heading changes than the deep open Gulf or Atlantic. Both scores show separately on every card, so the ranking is never a black box. Defaults to storms since 1950, where positions come from direct aircraft/satellite tracking rather than reconstructed reports.

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Comparing to Frances (2004) — peak 4 · FL impact 2.

El Nino 2FL impact Cross-Peninsula Track Major Hurricane (Cat 3+) Rapid Intensification
Formed
2004-08-25
Dissipated
2004-09-10
Peak wind
125 kt
Lifetime category
4
Min pressure
935 mb (lifetime)
Florida date
2004-09-05
Approach
atlantic
FL regions
SE2 SW1
Center landfall
yes (2)
ENSO (ASO ONI)
+0.70
Peak surge (FL)
8 ft (Vero Beach area (highest measured 5.89 ft at St. Lucie Lock))

Surge: storm surge above mean sea level / estimated, 6-8 ft across the landfall zone. NWS Melbourne estimated 8 ft near Vero Beach and 6 ft around Cocoa Beach. Source: NHC Tropical Cyclone Report; NWS Melbourne estimate.

Since 1950 Before 1950 All years (1851-2025)
Top 6 Top 20 All matches

Showing storms tracked directly by aircraft and satellite (1950+), the era where a track-shape match is most trustworthy. See all years for the full historical picture, including some striking older matches.

Ranked by near-Florida path first (how close the two tracks actually ran to each other once near the state), then by Straits/Cuba approach (did each handle the shallow shelf the same way on the way in), then by trait match. These answer genuinely different questions -- a storm can wobble identically on approach and still land 300 miles apart, or vice versa -- so they are shown separately, never blended into one number.

Showing 20 matches.

Track colors below are always: teal = Frances, orange = the comparison storm named in each card. On desktop these show as compact thumbnails, three per row; being vector maps they stay crisp at any size. Click a storm's name to open its own full-size record and track.

View Frances and these matches in the Zone Lab tool

Jeanne (2004) peak 3 · FL impact 3 near-Florida path 1.8 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 7 of 8 same month, category within 1, atlantic approach, same ENSO phase, rapid intensifier, ran very close to the same path across Florida
King (1950) peak 4 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1.4 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 6 of 8 adjacent month, same peak category, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Erin (1995) peak 2 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 1.4 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 4 of 8 adjacent month, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Easy (1950) peak 3 · FL impact 3 near-Florida path 1.4 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 3 of 8 same month, category within 1, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Irma (2017) peak 5 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1.3 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 6 of 8 same month, category within 1, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Dora (1964) peak 4 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 1.2 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 6 of 8 same month, same peak category, atlantic approach, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Alma (1966) peak 3 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 1.2 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 2 of 8 category within 1, rapid intensifier, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Cleo (1964) peak 4 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 1.2 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 6 of 8 adjacent month, same peak category, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
David (1979) peak 5 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 1.2 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 6 of 8 same month, category within 1, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Debby (2024) peak 1 · FL impact 1 near-Florida path 1 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 2 of 8 adjacent month, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Charley (2004) peak 4 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 5 of 8 adjacent month, same peak category, same ENSO phase, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Donna (1960) peak 4 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 7 of 8 same month, same peak category, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Idalia (2023) peak 4 · FL impact 3 near-Florida path 0.9 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 5 of 8 adjacent month, same peak category, same ENSO phase, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Ian (2022) peak 5 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 0.9 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 4 of 8 same month, category within 1, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Gladys (1968) peak 2 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 0.9 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 1 of 8 adjacent month, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Milton (2024) peak 5 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 0.9 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 3 of 8 adjacent month, category within 1, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Helene (2024) peak 4 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 0.8 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 5 of 8 same month, same peak category, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Irene (1999) peak 2 · FL impact 1 near-Florida path 0.8 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 4 of 8 adjacent month, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Sally (2020) peak 2 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 0.7 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 4 of 8 same month, atlantic approach, took a broadly similar path near Florida
Elena (1985) peak 3 · FL impact 3 near-Florida path 0.7 of 2 · Straits approach 0 of 2 · trait match 4 of 8 same month, category within 1, rapid intensifier, took a broadly similar path near Florida

View Frances and these matches in the Zone Lab tool

Describe a Hypothetical Scenario

Scoring weighs month (2), peak category (2), approach side (2), and ENSO phase (1), plus an optional point for rapid intensifiers; each match explains exactly which traits it shares.

Pick at least one trait above to search. Example scenario: October, Category 4, Gulf approach, Neutral phase; three of the last five Gulf-side October majors will look uncomfortably familiar.

Wondering about a storm active right now? The home page shows the latest NHC observations with their historical analogs.

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