Pre-1600 Atlantic hurricane seasons

The pre-1600 Atlantic hurricane seasons talks about all known Atlantic tropical cyclones before to 1600. While info for every storm that happened is not available, some parts of the coastline had enough people to give info of hurricane happenings. Each season was an event in the annual cycle of tropical cyclone formation in the Atlantic basin. Most tropical cyclone formation occurs between June 1 and November 30.

Atlantic hurricane seasons
Pre-1600 1600s/10s 1620s/30s

Observation info for years before 1492 is completely unavailable because record keeping was non-existent in the pre-Columbian era, and any records that may have once existed have long since been lost. Even info from the early years of the Columbian era is suspect and incomplete because the difference between a hurricane and an extratropical system was not drawn by Renaissance scientists and sailors and because European exploration and colonization of the regions affected by hurricanes did not begin in earnest until the mid-16th century.

However, paleotempestological research allows reconstruction of pre-historic hurricane activity trends on timescales of centuries to millennia. A theory has been postulated that an anti-phase pattern exists between the Gulf of Mexico coast and the Atlantic coast. During the quiescent periods, a more northeasterly position of the Azores High would result in more hurricanes being steered towards the Atlantic coast. During the hyperactive period, more hurricanes were steered towards the Gulf coast as the Azores High—controlled by the North Atlantic Oscillation—was shifted to a more southwesterly position near the Caribbean. In fact, few major hurricanes struck the Gulf coast during 3000–1400 BC and again during the most recent millennium; these quiescent intervals were separated by a hyperactive period during 1400 BC and 1000 AD, when the Gulf coast was struck frequently by catastrophic hurricanes and their landfall probabilities increased by 3–5 times. On the Atlantic coast, chance of landfalling hurricanes has doubled in the recent millennium compared to the one and a half millennia before.

Storms

Pre-1525

Year	Location	Date	Deaths	Damage/Notes
1494	Hispaniola	June 16	N/A	Possible hurricane; could have been the first hurricane in the Western Hemisphere observed and reported by Europeans.
1495	West Indies	N/A	N/A	3 ships sunk, earliest definite report of a hurricane, came from Christopher Columbus; "Nothing but the service of God and the extension of monarchy would expose me to such danger"
1500	Bahamas	July	N/A	2 ships destroyed
1502	Hispaniola	July 1	N/A	20 ships, all on board died
1502	Offshore Dominican Republic	11 July	500	N/A
1502	Honduras	16 September	N/A	1 ship sunk, all drowned aboard
1504	North Coast of Colombia	N/A	175	N/A
1508	Dominican Republic	12 August	Many	Destroyed entire population of Buenaventura
1509	Santo Domingo	29 July	N/A	Moderate damage
1515	Puerto Rico	July	Many natives	N/A
1519	Jamaica	N/A	N/A	Ship sunk, 18 survived
1520	Dominican Republic	N/A	N/A	N/A
1523	Florida west coast	N/A	N/A	2 ships and their crews lost
1524	Cuba	October	73	N/A

1525-1549

Year	Location	Date	Deaths	Damage/Notes
1525	Western Cuba	Late October	73	N/A
1525	Honduras	N/A	N/A	N/A
1526	Wilmington, North Carolina	June	N/A	1 Spanish ship lost
1527	Western Cuba	October	70	Severe flooding
1527	near mouth of the Mississippi	23 October	unknown	possibly associated with previous storm; barges under Panifo de Narvaez tossed like driftwood
1527	Upper Texas Coast	November	200	1 of only 2 November Texas hurricanes, Merchant fleet destroyed
1527	Dominican Republic	N/A	N/A	made landfall at Santo Domingo
1529	Puerto Rico	July 28–29	N/A	made landfall at San Juan de Puerto Rico
1530	Puerto Rico	Aug. 31	"Uncounted number of deaths by drowning"	N/A
1533	Puerto Rico	N/A	Many slaves killed	Possibly 3 hurricanes
1537	Puerto Rico	N/A	Many slaves drowned	N/A
1537	Northwest Cuba	N/A	N/A	2 ships lost
1545	Dominican Republic	Aug. 20	Many	N/A
1545	Mexico	N/A	N/A	1 ship lost
1545	Cuba	N/A	N/A	made landfall at Havana
1546	Dominican Republic	N/A	N/A	N/A
1546	Puerto Rico	Aug. 24	N/A	made landfall at San Juan de Puerto Rico

1550-1574

Year	Location	Date	Deaths	Damage/Notes
1550	Florida Keys	N/A	N/A	Ship lost near Havana
1551	Gulf of Honduras	N/A	Many	One ship sunk, all drowned
1552	Dominican Republic	Aug. 28–29	N/A	made landfall at Santo Domingo
1552	Mexico	Sep. 2–4	N/A	made landfall at Vera Cruz
1552	Florida	Sep. 3–6	N/A	N/A
1553	Western Florida	N/A	700	N/A
1553	Texas	N/A	Many drownings	Sixteen ships lost
1554	Cuba	November	N/A	One ship sank
1554	South Texas	N/A	N/A	Three ships lost
1559	Western Florida	August 20	500	N/A
1565	Offshore Eastern Florida	September 22	N/A	French ships lost at sea
1566	Eastern Florida	September 13	N/A	N/A
1566	Offshore Eastern Florida	September 24	N/A	N/A
1566	Gulf of Mexico	N/A	5+	Four ships destroyed
1567	Near Dominica	N/A	N/A	Six ships destroyed
1569	Bahamas	Sep.	N/A	passed the Bahamas Channel
1571	Cuba/Jamaica	Oct. 18–21	N/A	N/A
1571	St. Augustine, Florida	N/A	N/A	Heavy flooding, two ships lost

1575-1599

Year	Location	Date	Deaths	Damage/Notes
1576	Dominican Republic	N/A	N/A	made landfall at Monte Cristi Province
1577	Cuba/Jamaica	Aug./Sep.	N/A	N/A
1578	Dominican Republic	N/A	N/A	made landfall at Ocoa
1578	Cuba/Jamaica	Oct.	N/A	N/A
1579	Atlantic Ocean	N/A	N/A	Spanish Armada's 600 ton Almirante sunk
1579	Jamaica	N/A	N/A	N/A
1579	Bermudas	Sep. 13	N/A	N/A
1579	Bermudas	Sep. 26	N/A	N/A
1583	Dominican Republic	Aug. 19	N/A	made landfall at Santo Domingo
1586	Roanoke Island	June 23- June 26	N/A	First of many storms to hit the first colonial settlement
1586	Bahamas	N/A	N/A	Nine ships lost, possibly related to above
1587	Roanoke Island	August 31	N/A	Sir Francis Drake took six days to regroup in Roanoke after the storm
1588	Roanoke Island	N/A	116	Third of four hurricanes to hit the area in five years
1588	Cuba	Sep. 20	N/A	made landfall near Havanna
1588	Colombia	Nov. 4–6	N/A	made landfall near Cartagena de Indias
1589	Leeward Islands	Aug. 7	N/A	N/A
1589	Bahamas	September 9	N/A	four ships sank
1590	Gulf of Mexico	"Early 1590"	1000	N/A
1591	Atlantic Ocean	August 10	501	Waves and rain, twenty two ships lost
1591	Florida	September	N/A	made landfall near Las Tortugas
1591	Puerto Rico	September 21	N/A	N/A
1591	Cuba	September 24	N/A	N/A
1594	Caribbean Sea	N/A	N/A	One ship lost
1595	Cuba	Aug. 29–30	N/A	N/A
1599	Florida	Sep. 22	N/A	made landfall near St. Augustine

Related pages

• List of Atlantic hurricane seasons

Further reading

• Caviedes, César N. (1991). "Five hundred years of hurricanes in the Caribbean: Their relationship with global climatic variabilities". GeoJournal. 23 (4): 301–310. doi:10.1007/BF00193603. S2CID 154739074.
• García-Herrera, Ricardo (2005). "New records of Atlantic hurricanes from Spanish documentary sources". Journal of Geophysical Research. 110 (D3): D03109. Bibcode:2005JGRD..110.3109G. doi:10.1029/2004JD005272.
• Ludlum, David McWilliams (1963). Early American Hurricanes, 1492-1870. Boston: American Meteorological Society. OCLC 511649.
• Millás, José Carlos (1968). Hurricanes of the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions, 1492-1800. Miami: Academy of the Arts and Sciences of the Americas. OCLC 339427.

Other websites

• http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadlyapp1.shtml
• http://www.candoo.com/genresources/hurricane.htm Archived 2012-11-04 at the Wayback Machine
• http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/roth/vahur.htm
• http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lch/research/la18hu.php