Re: Landfall by states
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 7/8/2011, 11:02 pm
Very cool list. Florida certainly does stand out. Maybe I should consider moving to Delaware, lol. (Those statistics would be great for Delaware real estate agents.)

Florida gets more weak systems. Looks like that made us look a little worse.
Florida - 54.7% of the total is tropical storms
Texas - 43.2% of the total is tropical storms
Louisiana - 46.7% of the total is tropical storms

And if you count 4's and 5's, 10 in Florida and in Texas. Although when you get down to cat 3's, Florida has twice as many as its nearest competitor, Louisiana.

I took your stats and calculated the following using the total number of storms divided by the number of miles of coastline. Of course some areas of these coasts are much more likely to get hit within a given state, but out of interest, in order:

1. Mississippi coastline: 0.523 storms per mile (23 storms / 44 miles)
2. Alabama coastline: 0.377 storms per mile (20 storms / 53 miles)
3. Texas coastline: 0.259 storms per mile (95 storms / 367 miles)
4. Louisiana coastline: 0.227 storms per mile (90 storms / 397 miles)
5. Connecticut coastline: 0.198 storms per mile (19 storms / 96 miles)
6. North Carolina coastline: 0.189 storms per mile (57 storms / 301 miles)
7. New York coastline: 0.173 storms per mile (22 storms / 127 miles)
8. Florida coastline: 0.172 storms per mile (232 storms / 1350 miles)
9. South Carolina coastline: 0.171 storms per mile (32 storms / 187 miles)
10 .Georgia coastline: 0.170 storms per mile (17 storms / 100 miles)
11. Rhode Island coastline: 0.100 storms per mile (4 storms / 40 miles)
12. Massachusetts coastline: 0.068 storms per mile (13 storms / 192 miles)
13. Virginia coastline: 0.063 storms per mile (7 storms / 112 miles)
14. Maine coastline: 0.048 storms per mile (11 storms / 228 miles)
15. New Jersey coastline: 0.046 storms per mile (6 storms / 130 miles)
16. Maryland coastline: 0.032 storms per mile (1 storms / 31 miles)
17. New Hampshire coastline: 0 storms per mile (0 storms / 13 miles)
17. Delaware coastline: 0 storms per mile (0 storms / 28 miles)

Miles source: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21729.pdf
And the miles can differ wildly depending on what factors you use (from that link):

"Coastline measurements are more difficult because of the effects of tides and the
necessarily arbitrary decisions that must be made about measuring bays, coves, islands,
and inlets leading to streams and rivers. The "general coastline" data in this report are
based on large scale nautical charts, resulting in a coastline measure for the 50 states
totaling 12,383 miles. Another measure using smaller scale nautical charts more than
doubles this measurement to 29,093 miles, while the figures used by the NOAA in
administering the Coastal Zone Management program (16 U.S.C. 1451) come to 88,612
miles (not including the Great Lakes)."
70
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Landfall by states - Fred, 7/8/2011, 8:59 pm
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