As a year of record-breaking weather comes to a close, AccuWeather took a look back at the most intense moments. From powerful hurricanes and tornadoes to drought-busting storms and the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century, here is their list of the most unforgettable weather events of 2023.
Record-breaking January Tornado Outbreak
In a month typically clocking inches of snow, there were a whopping 168 tornadoes reported over two outbreaks, more than triple the historical average for January, setting a new record for the month.
An outbreak on January 12 produced 70 tornado reports across seven states. This date included two EF3 tornadoes that resulted in at least 9 deaths and 34 injuries across Alabama and Georgia. An EF2 tornado also caused devastation in the historic city of Selma, Alabama, about 40 miles west of Montgomery.
The first tornado emergency of the year was also issued on Jan. 12, becoming the earliest date on record that a tornado emergency was issued since 2008. “It is generally uncommon to see many tornadoes in January,” AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said.
On average, January is the third-least tornadic month, with three of the past five years recording 18 or fewer tornadoes. “No day of the year is zero – which is why AccuWeather meteorologists always stress that with the right conditions, tornadoes are possible any day of the year almost anywhere in the country,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
Killer EF4 Tornado rips through Mississippi
On March 24, two dozen twisters touched down across the Southeast, including the deadliest and one of the year’s most violent tornadoes. The EF4 tornado ripped through Rolling Fork, Mississippi, and claimed the lives of 17 people, including a couple killed by a large semi-truck that was tossed into their home.
The jaw-dropping images released by Maxar illustrate the twister’s violent path. Beginning in northern Issaquena County and ending to the northeast in northern Holmes County, the path was approximately 59.38 miles long, according to the storm survey from the National Weather Service (NWS). The maximum path width of the storm was three-quarters of a mile, and the tornado lasted for approximately 70 minutes. The tornado was given an EF4 rating, with estimated peak wind speeds of 170 mph.
Baeley Williams, one of the emergency responders in Rolling Fork, told AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell that the town was “unrecognizable” when she arrived. “I’ve been to 15 disasters, and as far as tornadoes go, this is one of the worst I’ve seen,” Clint Roe, a Cajun Navy Ground Force volunteer, told Wadell.
Spring’s Deadly U.S. Tornado Outbreak
The most notable tornado outbreak of 2023 was the deadly and now historic outbreak that impacted large portions of the Midwest, South, and East U.S. on March 31 and April 1. The year’s second and final EF4 tornado was one of 122 twisters reported across multiple states. AccuWeather’s own storm tracker and meteorologist, Tony Laubach, captured incredible footage of one of the strongest tornadoes of the year when he intercepted the twister in southeast Iowa near the city of Ottumwa.
Further south into Arkansas, damaging tornadoes hit Little Rock, among other hard-hit regions of the state, on March 31. This would become the fourth-largest tornado outbreak in US history.
Drought-busting Atmospheric Rivers Cause Flooding and Immense Snowpack in the West
Coming into 2023, drought was a major concern for California and other parts of the West. “This is a megadrought,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said. “Some scientists argue it’s the most significant in 1200 years of human history.” But it wouldn’t be long until the drought was wiped out completely.
A series of nine atmospheric rivers, starting in late December 2022 through mid-January 2023, dropped feet of rain and yards of snow across California and other parts of the West Coast. A week of heavy snowfall in the San Bernardino Mountains left residents in Lake Arrowhead trapped, rationing food and pleading for help. Twelve people were found dead in Southern California’s San Bernardino County a week after back-to-back winter storms dropped over 100 inches of snow in some locations.
In just three weeks, 80 percent of the average seasonal snowpack fell in California. By the end of last winter, reservoirs were full and AccuWeather is now forecasting zero drought concerns in California until at least the winter of 2025.
Smoke from Canada’s worst-ever Wildfire Season Blankets U.S. Cities
Canada experienced its worst wildfire season on record, obliterating all other years in terms of area burned. Over the course of the fire season, flames scorched an estimated 18.4 million hectares—an area roughly the size of North Dakota. According to NASA, on average, just 2.5 million hectares burn in Canada each year.
Thick smoke flowing south from the wildfires blanketed states in the U.S. as far south as Alabama, resulting in a surge of bad air quality days and forcing many Americans indoors. While Southern California and parts of the East Coast typically have the worst air pollution in the United States, as a result of the wildfire smoke billowing in from Canada, several counties in the middle and north of the country reached code purple or maroon — indicating “very dangerous” or “hazardous” air quality — for the first time.
Code red, an alert level below purple, is when air quality may cause serious health effects for sensitive groups, including children and the elderly. At times, the smoke was so thick that city skylines appeared to vanish and people could smell the scent of the wildfires simply by stepping outside.
Deadliest US wildfire in more than a Century Devastates Maui, Hawaii
The wildfire that ignited in Maui on August 8 was the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century, killing at least 106 people and all but incinerating Lahaina, destroying every building in the town of 13,000.
Weather in the months before the wildfire created conditions on the island that ultimately led to the tragedy. It began last winter when more rainfall than is typical caused greater grass and vegetation growth. Below-average rainfall from February through July caused the vegetation to dry out. When unusually gusty winds rapidly dried out these grasses and other vegetation, it led to “a tinder-box situation, ripe for any fire to grow rapidly,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter explained. The same winds helped to fan the flames at a dangerously fast rate.
The cause of the fire that scorched Lahaina has not been determined. Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives continue to investigate. However, according to The Associated Press, Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged its power lines started the wildfire on Maui but said in a statement that county firefighters declared the blaze contained and left the scene, only to have a second wildfire break out nearby.
AccuWeather estimates that the total damage and economic toll of the catastrophic wildfires in Hawaii that decimated Lahaina is $14 to $16 billion.
“It’s going to also be a natural disaster that’s going to take an incredible amount of time to recover from,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said.
Hurricane Idalia slams Florida’s Nature Coast
The above-normal 2023 Atlantic hurricane season was characterized by record-warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures and a strong El Niño. A total of 20 storms were named in 2023, along with a tropical depression and an unnamed subtropical storm. This ranks fourth for the most-named storms in a year since 1950 and the most on record during an El Niño-influenced season. Seven storms were hurricanes, three intensifying to major hurricanes.
Hurricane Idalia was the only U.S. landfalling hurricane in 2023. It made landfall on August 30 as a Category 3 hurricane near Keaton Beach, Florida, before dumping rain across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. The hurricane pushed nearly nine feet of storm surge into Cedar Key. Farther inland, cities faced powerful winds that snapped trees, ripped off roofs and destroyed homes. “I felt the roof coming off, so I grabbed my 3-year-old son and ran downstairs. It’s destroyed and soaked. Everything is gone,” Perry resident Dewayne Williams told AccuWeather.
AccuWeather’s Hurricane Experts warned businesses eight days ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall and AccuWeather was the only source to say that parts of the Southeast could face “flooding rainfall and damaging winds” from an impending tropical system. The eventual landfall point of Idalia was just 43 miles away from AccuWeather’s initial landfall point, four times more accurate than the average National Hurricane Center track from that time. AccuWeather’s estimate of the total damage and economic loss from Hurricane Idalia in the southeastern U.S. is $18 billion to $20 billion.
Hurricane Lee stirs up rough Surf and Dangerous Rip Currents along East Coast
Before making landfall in far western Nova Scotia, Hurricane Lee caused dangerous surf and rip currents along the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Lee claimed two victims, a 51-year-old man who was killed by a falling tree branch in Maine and a teenager who drowned off the coast of Florida amid rough seas churned up by the hurricane. The monstrous storm cut power to more than 280,000 electric customers across Maine, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as it roared ashore.
Lee’s journey to landfall started more than 11 days prior in the form of a tropical depression in the central Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, Sept. 5. Six hours after being declared a depression, it was upgraded to be the twelfth tropical storm of the season.
In just 18 hours on Sept. 7, Lee rapidly intensified from a Category 1 hurricane with maximum winds of 80 mph to a powerhouse Category 5 hurricane with winds of 160 mph — the only Category 5 storm of the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season. At peak strength, Lee packed winds of 165 mph, making it the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic basin since Dorian in 2019, which had catastrophic winds of 185 mph.
The Hottest Year in Recorded History
Six record-breaking months and two seasons – summer and autumn – were recorded in 2023, making it the hottest year ever recorded.
Texas, a state known to be hot, experienced its second-hottest summer on record, falling only behind the summer of 2011. In late June, temperatures in many Lone Star cities exceeded 100 degrees. Cities like El Paso and Austin went more than 40 days with high temperatures above 100 degrees. Lack of rain also pushed much of the state into severe drought.
Phoenix also recorded its hottest summer on record with high temperatures of 110 degrees or more on 54 days in 2023 – 31 of those days were consecutive, making July Phoenix’s hottest July on record.
“Here in Maracopa County, the day after day high heat, makes it more stressful and straining. It makes it harder to just survive,” Amy Schwabenlender, executive director at Human Services Campus in Phoenix told AccuWeather.
Temperatures soared across the Northern Hemisphere, with June and July shattering previous records to become the hottest on record. Record warmth in the Atlantic made for an above-historical average hurricane season despite a building El Nino.
El Niño nears Historic Strength
The global weather phenomenon El Niño, in which surface waters are abnormally warm in the eastern tropical Pacific, was a major player in many of the top weather events in 2023. The major shift to El Niño following three years of La Niña, could evolve into one of the strongest El Niño events observed over the past 75 years, new data shows.
El Niño officially developed in early June and gradually intensified as the year progressed. While the phenomenon typically suppresses tropical activity in the Atlantic basin, the delay between the onset of El Niño and its impact on the weather, along with the unusually warm water across the Atlantic Ocean, left the door open for an active hurricane season to unfold. With El Niño now well established and stronger than it was earlier in the, AccuWeather meteorologists say it will have a bigger influence on the weather across North America through the start of 2024.
Theisphoto gallery showcases the best weather pictures added to AccuWeather’s “Weather Permitting” Photo Blog in 2023.
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Photo Credit: Zane Vergara / Shutterstock.com