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 Donna (1960) — peak 4 · FL impact 4.

Neutral 4FL impact Cross-Peninsula Track Major Hurricane (Cat 3+) Rapid Intensification
Formed
1960-08-29
Dissipated
1960-09-14
Peak wind
125 kt
Lifetime category
4
Min pressure
930 mb (lifetime)
Florida date
1960-09-10
Approach
atlantic
FL regions
SW4 SE4 NE1
Center landfall
yes (2)
ENSO (ASO ONI)
+0.27
Peak surge (FL)
none exists for this era

Surge: no curated record, and none is likely to exist. Reliable landfall-zone surge observation generally predates neither the modern gauge network nor NHC Tropical Cyclone Reports for storms of this era; surge comparisons on this site skew modern as a result (disclosed on the methodology page).

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 6 matches.

Track colors below are always: teal = Donna, 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 Donna and these matches in the Zone Lab tool

Irma (2017) peak 5 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1.6 of 2 · Straits approach 0.3 of 2 · trait match 7 of 8 same month, category within 1, atlantic approach, same ENSO phase, rapid intensifier, somewhat similar Straits approach angle, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Charley (2004) peak 4 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1.5 of 2 · Straits approach 1.2 of 2 · trait match 4 of 8 adjacent month, same peak category, rapid intensifier, similar Florida Straits wobble, somewhat similar Straits approach angle, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Irene (1999) peak 2 · FL impact 1 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
Cleo (1964) peak 4 · FL impact 2 near-Florida path 1.4 of 2 · Straits approach 1.6 of 2 · trait match 6 of 8 adjacent month, same peak category, atlantic approach, rapid intensifier, similar Florida Straits wobble, similar Straits approach angle, ran very close to the same path across Florida
Ian (2022) peak 5 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1.4 of 2 · Straits approach 0.2 of 2 · trait match 4 of 8 same month, category within 1, rapid intensifier, ran very close to the same path across Florida
King (1950) peak 4 · FL impact 4 near-Florida path 1.3 of 2 · Straits approach 1.2 of 2 · trait match 7 of 8 adjacent month, same peak category, atlantic approach, same ENSO phase, rapid intensifier, similar Florida Straits wobble, somewhat similar Straits approach angle, ran very close to the same path across Florida

View Donna 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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