17 storms, 10 hurricanes marks end of one of the costliest seasons on record

Seventeen storms were named in the Atlantic Ocean this hurricane season. Ten morphed into hurricanes - six of them, major, causing an unprecedented more than $206 billion in damages.

“As the 2017 Hurricane Season comes to a close on November 30th, the United States has been left with a wake of destruction unlike any other year we've ever seen,” according to a release from the International Hurricane Protection Association.

This season was the costliest one yet to hit the United States, according to the release.

Harvey slammed Texas. Irma smashed through Florida. And Maria walloped Dominica and Puerto Rico. Irma and Maria were category 5 storms, but Harvey - as a 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale - wreaked the most havoc, leaving nearly $200 billion in damages in its wake. Many people are still recovering, according to IHPA, a not-for-profit representing the hurricane protection industry.

September was the “single most powerful month ever recorded in the Atlantic in terms of hurricane intensity,” USA Today reported.

The month hosted hurricanes Irma, Jose, Katia, Lee and Maria and all but Katia churned into major hurricanes.

“Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have fled the island due to the slow process of rebuilding,” IHPA reports. “Homes and lives are being rebuilt in Houston and the Florida Keys, where flooding and wind damage devastated neighborhoods.”

CNN reports that the hurricanes, this year, may have claimed more than 600 lives.

Forecasters were predicting the potential of an “extremely active” season in August with an estimated 14 to 19 named storms, of which five to nine would spin into hurricanes and an estimated two to five of them major. But the season exceeded expectations.

“Worldwide damage is reportedly at an astounding $369.6 billion, the second most expensive year since 1960,” according to the IHPA release, and 2018 may be just as bad.

Former NOAA meteorologist, Professor David Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations, predicts this is the beginning of a volatile cycle of extremely active seasons, IHPA reports.

Dilley plans to release his predictions for the 2018 hurricane season in February.

This story was originally published November 29, 2017 at 5:18 PM with the headline "17 storms, 10 hurricanes marks end of one of the costliest seasons on record."