At a Glance

The U.S. has had a record 12 named storms make landfall this season.Florida's first landfall didn't happen until Eta in early November.Sally made landfall in Alabama, but did produce storm surge, rainfall flooding and high winds in the Panhandle.

Florida finally recorded its first official landfall of a 2020 Atlantic hurricane season that otherwise shattered a record for U.S. named storm landfalls.

Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in the Florida Keys late Sunday night with winds at the time estimated at 65 mph.

Eta became the 12th named storm to make landfall in the mainland U.S. in 2020. That's three more than the previous record for the most U.S. landfalls in a season set in 1916.

It took until November 8, typically the hurricane season's last month, for one of those storms to make its official landfall in the Sunshine State.

There is an asterisk to that, however.

hammered the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama in mid-September with up to 30 inches of rain, wind gusts up to 121 mph and storm surge flooding.

Technically speaking though, Sally's landfall – the location in which the center of a tropical storm or hurricane crosses land – occurred just across the border near Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Sally's Landfall

It also moved across South Florida as Tropical Depression Nineteen. It didn't become Sally until it moved offshore just south of Naples, Florida.

Other Brushes

Beside Sally and Eta, Florida only had two other brushes this season from storms that later made U.S. landfalls elsewhere.

Tropical storm warnings in the Lower and Middle Keys were later dropped as Tropical Storm Laura tracked over or south of western Cuba in late August.

And while the Atlantic coast of Florida was under hurricane warnings for Isaias in early August, it only brushed the coast with some modest wind and rain while its center remained safely offshore.

The Florida Gulf Coast from Apalachicola to Tampa Bay is the only part of the East or Gulf coasts that have yet to be placed under a tropical storm or hurricane warning so far this season.

Even parts of western Maine have been in a tropical storm warning this season before the aforementioned part of Florida's Gulf Coast.

Track of landfalling named storms in the U.S. in 2020. The track through South Florida other than Eta in the Keys was Tropical Depression Nineteen, which eventually became Sally in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Data: NOAA/NHC)

Recent Seasons: All or Nothing

In recent years, Florida has had frenetic hurricane seasons, but also some long hurricane dry spells.

Hurricane Irma in 2017 sliced up the Florida Peninsula from the Keys northward. That was followed one year later by Category 5 Hurricane Michael's devastation in the Panhandle.

In 2004, Florida was struck by four hurricanes – Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne – three of which passed through .

Tracks of the four hurricanes that impacted Florida in 2004.

(Track data: NHC)

Three more hurricanes – Dennis, Katrina and Wilma – made landfall in Florida in 2005. Another one, Rita, brushed the Florida Keys.

But after Wilma, it would be almost 11 years before the next hurricane – Hermine – would make a Florida landfall, a .

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