United States

A Look Back at 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season

In 2011, there was an above-normal season with 19 named tropical storms, 7 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes. Three storms made landfall in the U.S. during the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

The most memorable storm of the season for millions of East Coast residents was Hurricane Irene, a storm that broke "hurricane amnesia" for many communities. Irene was the strongest hurricane to hit the East Coast since Bob in 1991.

A truck drives down a flooded street in Columbia, N.C., Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011 after Hurricane Irene struck Saturday. The storm that spent 12-hours scouring the brought pockets of flooding that required rescues along the sounds and left nearly a half-million customers without power. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Irene made landfall in North Carolina as a Category 1 storm on Aug. 27, 2011 before hitting near Atlantic City as a tropical storm and moving over Manhattan the next day. NOAA reports that Irene killed 40 people and caused $15.8 billion in damage in the U.S.

The World Meteorological Organization's hurricane committee retired the name Irene due to the extensive damage and deaths Hurricane Irene caused.

The other landfalling storms in the U.S. in 2011 were Tropical Storm Don, which made landfall in Deep South Texas and quickly fizzled, and Tropical Storm Lee, which made landfall southwest of Lafayette, La. Lee moved on to unleash torrential rainfall on top of areas soaked by Irene in the mid-Atlantic, resulting in record-setting and historic flooding for portions of New York and Pennsylvania.

By Meghan Evans, Meteorologist