Photography by Alex Dantin, Brian Nevins, Cody Hammer, Pat Eichstaedt, Mike Nelson, Theo Potgeiter, Cate Brown, Mike Janusz, Cody Hammer, and Chris Giannone.

The best thing about being a surfer is you always have something to look forward to. No matter how bad things get in life, there will always be another wave. Another swell. Another storm. These phenomenon are forever.

Back East, every surfer looks forward to, or at least considers, hurricane season. It isn’t really a season, though, more a six-month siege of quick-twitch vigilance, but it is the single most emblematic thing about this place. From the Caribbean to the Gulf and up and down the Eastern Seaboard, for six months these storms dictate every surfer’s life.

We wait for them. We watch them. Sometimes we fight them. And if all goes right, we ride them.

“Long before June 1st , the first day of 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season, prognosticators warned of a stunningly hyperactive season of more than 20 named storms,” Surfline’s Charlie Hutcherson says. “This season didn’t quite meet those expectations, falling on the low end of NOAA’s predicted totals, but it came close. While the season as a whole was above average, what made this one so unusual was the distribution of tracks, intensities, landfalls and timing — particularly the high percentage of hurricanes and major hurricanes.

Ultimately, we had 18 named storms, 11 of which became hurricanes, five of which became majors, meaning 61% of the storms ratcheted up the intensity this year compared to the near 50% average. For some comparison, during the record-setting seasons of 2020 (most named storms) and 2005 (most hurricanes) about 50% of named storms became hurricanes. Collectively, the 2024 storms delivered a lot of surf around the Atlantic, and sadly, a lot of destruction.”

“The Western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico were the epicenters of tropical activity this season,” Hutcherson says. “Nearly two-thirds of all hurricanes (11) tracked through this zone, including Cat 5 Beryl , Cat 4 Helene and Cat 5 Milton , names to be retired from the list. Five of the hurricanes made landfall in the U.S. Gulf, three of which hit Florida’s Gulf Coast — Helene, Milton, and Debby . The storms were mostly confined to those two regions, preventing them from spreading significant swell around the Atlantic. More than 60% of this season’s storms were nearly useless for generating surf at Atlantic breaks.”

“I spend each hurricane season tracking storms that enter the Gulf, hoping for a chance to catch one of those rare windows,” says Panhandle native Will Warren, who currently lives in Jacksonville Beach. “Helene offered one of those windows, delivering one of the best days I’ve ever seen back home. We usually have to wait a few years for a day like that, but we were lucky enough to score a similar swell last season with Idalia. Every season is luck of the draw, though, so it might be a few years before it gets that good again.”

“Overall, this was a busy season for the Gulf,” Warren says. “We scored fun waves from Francine and Rafael, but Helene really set the bar for future seasons. Meanwhile, we had tons of fun, consistent surf here in Jax. There were waves from September through November, just no standout days like we got in the Gulf.”

“The tropical cyclone track is tantamount to where it can deliver surf,” Hutcherson explains. “Of the 18 named storms, two clusters of tracks stood out — a high concentration in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and another in the Central Atlantic — neither of which are ideal for delivering widespread swell around the basin. In a perfect scenario for surfers, a hurricane intensifies into a major hurricane and continually spits out swell as it lifts over the Caribbean islands and into the Western Atlantic, making a turn around Bermuda before heading off toward Europe and the UK. In 2024, Ernesto was the sole recurving system, limiting tropical swell for the Northeast and UK/Europe. And although there were a number of storms in the Central Atlantic, like Isaac and Kirk, they were generally too far away from land and dissipated over cooler waters before they could become significant swell makers. So the waves they delivered, while fun, were largely unremarkable.”

“We had a quick start with Ernesto in August, but the season never really kicked off in September, and we had what felt like a month straight of onshore winds,” says Outer Banks pro Quentin Turko. “We had a lot of waves during that time, but very few days of offshores, so we had to really be on the windows of good waves that we did have. Some of my best sessions were just a couple hours between fronts or right before dark.”

“This season evoked memories of the similarly catastrophic 2004 and 2005 seasons,” Hutcherson says. “But this year was much more odd in that early September — the typical peak of the season — was unusually quiet . Instead, the season was front and back loaded by two extremely active periods in July-August and October.

Usually, the season follows a regular ebb and flow. Storms forming in June and July send localized surf, usually around the Southeast U.S. or Gulf of Mexico. Tropical activity ramps up in late August, peaks in early September, and the season stays busy with powerful cyclones and widespread swell makers until activity slows down in late October. This year, though, we witnessed the earliest Cat 5 on record when Beryl plowed through the Caribbean at the beginning of July. Debby and Ernesto stole the headlines in August, but then there wasn’t another surge until late September, then ten storms were named through October including Francine , Helene, Isaac, Kirk , Leslie , Milton and Oscar . Finally, early November brought three more storms, including Cat 3 Rafael , a rare Gulf hurricane that didn’t make landfall.”

“With so many storms moving around the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Panhandle, Alabama and Texas got the best surf without the destructive landfalls,” Hutcherson says. “Florida’s East Coast also benefited somewhat from the Gulf storm track until Milton washed away many of its best sandbars, while the northern half of the East Coast and UK/Europe had a pretty subpar season for surf.

Sadly, West Florida became ground zero for tropical destruction this year as Helene and Milton made landfall in close proximity. And Helene went on to create cataclysmic flooding in Western North Carolina. Finally, the last storm of the season, Tropical Storm Sara, parked itself over coastal Honduras in mid-November, dumping nearly 20 inches of rain on parts of Central America. Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula also took multiple lashes this season.”

“This hurricane season was a lot different than 2023, with a lot more storms in the Gulf and fewer off the East Coast,” Turko says. “It’s always a relief when the season comes to an end without any storms making landfall here, but it’s also very sad to see the devastation that others experienced.”