It’s been more than eight years since the United States has been hit by a hurricane with winds strong enough to make it a Category 3 — what’s officially considered a “major” storm. The last time a major hurricane struck was in 2005, the year both Katrina and Rita battered the Gulf South, making the current drought the longest since record keeping began in the 1880s. The reason, experts say, is a combination of a particular weather pattern and luck — with lots of the latter.
“We’ve been very lucky,” said Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist with the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University.