text: Over the period 1944-1996, decreasing trends were found for (1) the total number of hurricanes, (2) the number of intense hurricanes, (3) the annual number of hurricane days, (4) the maximum attained wind speed of all hurricane storms averaged over the course of a year, and (5) the highest wind speed associated with the strongest hurricane recorded in each year. In addition, the authors report that the total number of Atlantic hurricanes making landfall in the United States has decreased over an extended 1899-1996 time period, and that normalized trends in hurricane damage in the United States between 1925 and 1996 reveal such damage to be decreasing at a rate of 728 million dollars per decade. What it means