That potential was realized in late September with the birth of Hurricane Helen. It rapidly intensified before making landfall on the Florida coast as a Category 4 major storm.
Helen brought catastrophic flooding and widespread wind damage to a large swath of the southeastern United States, from the Florida Gulf Coast to the southern Appalachians.
According to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this is the deadliest hurricane to affect the continental United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, killing more than 150 people.
Helen was the first of six storms that developed in rapid succession. Five of these became hurricanes, and four of them rapidly intensified, with sustained winds increasing to at least 35 mph (56 km/h) within 24 hours.
Hurricane Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico in early October and experienced a dramatic increase in wind speeds of 90 mph (145 km/h) in 24 hours, one of the most extreme examples of a dramatic increase in wind speeds on record.
It briefly reached Category 5 intensity before weakening to Category 3 and making landfall on the west coast of Florida. It brought widespread impacts, including damaging storm surges and an outbreak of 46 tornadoes.
The final storm of the Atlantic season is Tropical Storm Sara. The storm did not intensify into a hurricane, but it moved slowly near the coast of Central America, bringing massive flooding. More than 3 feet (nearly 1 meter) of rain fell on the northern coast of Honduras.
