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Joe Bastardi at Weatherbell puts hurricanes in historical perspective at his latest Weatherbell Saturday Summary.

He presents a fascinating statistic that tells us the alarmist claims being made today about higher and stronger storm frequency over the Atlantic are in fact a lot of hype and wild exaggeration.

Joe Bastardi’s chart showing that USA saw far more hurricane hits in the late 1800’s. Source: Screenshot from here.

The 30-year period from 1871 – 1900 saw 20 major hurricanes, i.e. 67% more than the 12 seen over the 1986 – 2015 period. Landfall points from 1871 – 1900 totaled 65, which is about 70% more than the recent 30-year period.

What more do you want?

Trump is right

Also Joe makes the very important point that in former times hurricane intensity was measured when they made landfall, and not while they were out to sea. Today modern instruments and satellites allow cyclones to be watched from birth to death, and very often these cyclones are stronger when they are over warm open waters. But as they approach land, they wind up intaking energy-sapping dry air form over the land and are weaker when they make landfall.

Also Bastardi confirms that Donald Trump was correct in his statement where he claimed hurricanes used to be stronger.

Bastardi does pour some cold water on hurricane frequency, claiming in his video that he doesn’t think hurricane variability is anything different than it was.