@MilesAhead: Well, it seem that you may be statistically relatively lucky if you've been relatively unharmed by Irma.
I say that because it seems that
Irma 2017 Cat.5 was potentially
quite a bit worse than
Harvey 2017 Cat.4 - having a much lower air pressure (giving it greater potential energy).
Irma is thus tied 7th in the league table (with a 1928 hurricane) and Harvey tied 18th (with two other hurricanes, one in 1898 and one in 1954).
You are probably also statistically
unlucky in that you happened to be in one of the only two US landfall areas hit by hurricanes so far this year - Irma and Harvey look as though they broke the 12-year hurricane quiet period since 2005 (Rita and Katrina, both Cat.3).
I only realised this after seeing this recent tweet from
Philip Klotzbach - a meteorologist at CSU specializing in Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts. (I learned to keep a weather eye on my barometer and meteorological forecasters some years back, whilst working on computerised data-driven weather forecasting mathematical models in the UK.)
Copied from:
Philip Klotzbach on Twitter:
"Table of all hurricanes with landfall pressures <= 940 mb at time of U.S. landfall. #Irma was 929 mb and #Harvey was 938 mb. https://t.co/suhreEDMr3"
