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ABSTRACT
A summary of the 1996 Atlantic hurricane season is given, and the individual tropical storms and hurricanes are described. This was the second active year in a row with a large number of intense hurricanes. Hurricane Fran, which hit the coast of North Carolina, was the strongest system to make landfall, and also the most destructive.
1. Introduction
For the second consecutive year, the Atlantic basin experienced above-normal hurricane activity. Of the 13 tropical storms that developed in 1996, 9 reached hurricane intensity. The two-year total of 20 Atlantic hurricanes in 1995 and 1996 is the highest ever recorded, going back to at least when accurate records began in the mid-1940s. Six of the hurricanes became "major," that is, had maximum 1-min winds in excess of 49 m s^sup -1^ [category three or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (SSHS); Simpson (1974)] in 1996. This is three times the normal number and is the highest seasonal total of major hurricanes since 1961 (in which there were seven). Landsea (1993), however, has suggested that the major hurricanes in the 1940s through the 1960s were overestimated in wind speed intensity compared with those of the 1970s through the early 1990s. Landsea's bias-removed database suggests that 1996 was the busiest major hurricane season since the seven in 1950.
Every year, the National Hurricane Center (NHC, a component of the Tropical Prediction Center) produces a tropical cyclone "best track" database that consists of center positions and intensities every 6 h. These best track data are derived from position and intensity estimates using the following data: meteorological satellite imagery, reconnaissance aircraft reports, surface and upper-air observations (particularly surface ship reports), and (when the center of a tropical cyclone comes within a few hundred kilometers of the U.S. coastline) weather radar observations. The vast majority of satellite information during the 1996 season came from the geostationary satellite GOES-8. Position and intensity estimates using satellite data are obtained by using the Dvorak (1984) technique. Most of the aerial reconnaissance was accomplished by the "Hurricane Hunters" of the U.S. Air Force Reserve Unit. Reconnaissance aircraft are routinely deployed into Atlantic tropical cyclones that pose a potential threat to land areas. These aircraft observations are of vital importance to the tracking and...