2012 Atlantic hurricane season

The **2012 Atlantic hurricane season** was the last of three extremely active seasons as a result of a continuing strong La Nina forming in the summer, though many storms were weak. This season featured a total of 19 named storms, 10 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. This season is tied for third most active along with, 1887, 1995, 2010, and 2011. The strongest storm was Hurricane Sandy, a late-season hurricane that caused over $75 billion in damages.

## Storms

### Tropical Storm Alberto

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Alberto was a short-lived pre-season tropical storm near the southeastern U.S. coast.

### Tropical Storm Beryl

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Beryl was a pre-season tropical storm that made landfall in northeastern Florida and subsequently affected portions of the southeastern United States. It was the strongest pre-season tropical cyclone of record to make landfall in the United States.

### Hurricane Chris

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Chris was a category 1 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) of non-tropical origins. No June tropical cyclone became a hurricane farther north than Chris.

### Tropical Storm Debby

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Debby was a large tropical storm that formed in the south-central Gulf of Mexico and made landfall in the Florida Big Bend region. It caused considerable freshwater flooding, primarily in central and northern Florida.

### Hurricane Ernesto

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Ernesto was a weak tropical storm as it passed through the Windward Islands and eastern Caribbean Sea. It quickly strengthened over the northwestern Caribbean Sea and became a category 2 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) just before landfall along the coast of the southern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

### Tropical Storm Florence

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Florence was a short-lived tropical storm over the eastern Atlantic Ocean that dissipated east of the northern Leeward Islands.

### Tropical Storm Helene

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Helene had two brief periods of existence as a tropical cyclone and made landfall as a tropical depression near Tampico, Mexico.

### Hurricane Gordon

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Gordon reached category 2 status (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) in the north Atlantic. It weakened to a category 1 hurricane before it moved over Santa Maria Island in the Azores.

### Hurricane Isaac

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Isaac was a tropical cyclone that spent most of its life as a tropical storm but became a category 1 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) a few hours before making landfall in southeastern Louisiana. The cyclone produced heavy rainfall and inland flooding across portions of the Caribbean as it moved through the Lesser Antilles, and it made landfalls along the southwestern peninsula of Haiti and extreme eastern Cuba. Isaac became a large tropical cyclone and caused extensive storm surge and inland flooding over southern Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana. Isaac is estimated to be directly responsible for 34 deaths: 24 in Haiti, 5 in the Dominican Republic, and 5 in the United States.

### Tropical Storm Joyce

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Joyce was a short-lived tropical storm over the eastern North Atlantic that did not affect land.

### Hurricane Kirk

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Kirk was a small category 2 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) that spent its life over the central and northeastern Atlantic.

### Hurricane Leslie

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Leslie was a long-lived tropical cyclone but a short-lived category 1 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) that skirted Bermuda and made landfall as a strong extratropical storm along the Burin Peninsula of southeastern Newfoundland. Hurricane Leslie was also the eighth tropical storm to form in August, tying a record for most named storms in a month

### Hurricane Michael

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Michael was briefly a category 3 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) as it moved over the east-central Atlantic Ocean. Michael is only the fifth major hurricane in the satellite era to develop from a disturbance of non-tropical origin.

### Hurricane Nadine

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Nadine was an unusually long-lived tropical cyclone that completed three loops over the eastern subtropical Atlantic. Nadine attained hurricane strength on two occasions, a record thirteen days apart.

### Tropical Storm Oscar

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Oscar was a short-lived tropical storm over the eastern Atlantic Ocean that did not affect land.

### Tropical Storm Patty

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Patty was a short-lived, nearly stationary tropical storm over the western Atlantic Ocean just east of the Bahamas.

### Hurricane Rafael

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Rafael moved across the northern Leeward Islands as a tropical storm and became a category 1 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) over the Atlantic well south of Bermuda.

### Hurricane Sandy

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Sandy was a classic late-season hurricane in the southwestern Caribbean Sea. The cyclone made landfall as a category 1 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) in Jamaica, and as a 100-kt category 3 hurricane in eastern Cuba before quickly weakening to a category 1 hurricane while moving through the central and northwestern Bahamas. Sandy underwent a complex evolution and grew considerably in size while over the Bahamas, and continued to grow despite weakening into a tropical storm north of those islands. The system re-strengthened into a hurricane while it moved northeastward, parallel to the coast of the southeastern United States, and reached a secondary peak intensity of 85 kt while it turned northwestward toward the mid-Atlantic states. Sandy weakened somewhat and then made landfall as a post-tropical cyclone near Brigantine, New Jersey with 70-kt maximum sustained winds. Because of its tremendous size, however, Sandy drove a catastrophic storm surge into the New Jersey and New York coastlines. Preliminary U.S. damage estimates are near $50 billion, making Sandy the second-costliest cyclone to hit the United States since 1900. There were at least 147 direct deaths recorded across the Atlantic basin due to Sandy, with 72 of these fatalities occurring in the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States. This is the greatest number of U.S. direct fatalities related to a tropical cyclone outside of the southern states since Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

### Tropical Storm Tony

 Duration
 Peak intensity

Tony was a short-lived and relatively weak tropical storm that remained over the central Atlantic through its lifetime.

## Storm names

The following names were used for named storms in the North Atlantic in 2012. The names not retired from this list will be used again in the 2018 season. This is the same list used in the 2006 season. The names Kirk, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, and Tony were used for Atlantic storms for the first time in 2012 (and only, in the case of Sandy). The names not assigned are marked in gray.

* Beryl
* Chris
* Debby
* Ernesto
* Florence
* Gordon
* Isaac
* Joyce
* Kirk
* Leslie
* Michael
* Nadine
* Patty
* Rafael
* Sandy
* Tony
* Valerie *(unused)*
* William *(unused)*

### **Retirement**

On April 11, 2013, at the 35th Session of the World Meteorological Organization's Regional Association Hurricane Committee, the WMO retired the name *Sandy* from its rotating name lists. It was replaced with *Sara* for the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL012012\_Alberto.pdf
2. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL022012\_Beryl.pdf
3. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL032012\_Chris.pdf
4. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL042012\_Debby.pdf
5. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL052012\_Ernesto.pdf
6. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL062012\_Florence.pdf
7. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL072012\_Helene.pdf
8. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL082012\_Gordon.pdf
9. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092012\_Isaac.pdf
10. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL102012\_Joyce.pdf
11. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL112012\_Kirk.pdf
12. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL122012\_Leslie.pdf
13. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL132012\_Michael.pdf
14. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL142012\_Nadine.pdf
15. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL152012\_Oscar.pdf
16. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL162012\_Patty.pdf
17. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL172012\_Rafael.pdf
18. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL182012\_Sandy.pdf
19. ↑ http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL192012\_Tony.pdf