The intensity of a hurricane and the impact of hurricane season is determined by a multitude of environmental factors including sea surface temperatures and atmospheric pressure. Now, you can compare and contrast the hurricane seasons between 1995 and 2010 in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans using official National Weather Service yearly tropical cyclone summary maps.
Browse through the following pages (in the table below) to see the pathway and category each named tropical storm, hurricane, or cyclone took in the corresponding year. Each map can be printed for more study of the images and for educational purposes.
How to Read the Hurricane Charts
Each map is color coded with storm intensity level in the lower left-hand corner of the image. The eye of the hurricane is tracked from beginning to end.
- The red indicates the storm is a full hurricane or cyclone.
- Yellow indicates tropical storm level.
- Green indicates a tropical depression
- The + sign indicates the storm is no longer tropical in nature and is heading more towards the North Atlantic or out to the open sea.
Each storm is given a number so you can easily see the path each took along either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.
- The date range for each hurricane is listed in a box on the lower right-hand side of the picture.
- Before each name, you will also see a T or H. This stands for Tropical Storm or Hurricane consecutively.
The black dot is the time at 0000 UTC. This means Coordinated Universal Time. (Also known as Zulu Time.) Visit the Photo Glossary for a detailed explanation on reading UTC or Zulu time.
Understanding the White Numbered Dots Along the Storm Path
Similar to the black dots above, the white dots are a positional location of the storm. This time, the position of the storm is given at 1200 UTC or 1200Z. In addition, each number along the line indicates the day in the month of the storm. (The month is found in the lower right-hand box.)
Atlantic
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Pacific
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000 A
2000 B
2001 A
2001 B
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006 A
2006 B
2007
2008 A
2008 B
2009 A
2009 B
2010