Note: This report catalogs recent tropical cyclones across the North Atlantic and East Pacific and places each basin’s tropical cyclone activity in a climate-scale context. It is not updated in real time. Users seeking the real time status and forecasts of tropical cyclones should visit The National Hurricane Center.

North Atlantic

November, the final month in the North Atlantic hurricane season, produced one named storm in the basin. The season overall was categorized as "above normal" by NOAA, generating 15 named storms, seven of them hurricanes, and three of those major hurricanes.

November 2016 Tropical Cyclone Counts
Storm Type November 2016 November 1981-2010 Average Record Most for November
Period of Record: 1851-2016
Tropical Storm
(Winds > 39 mph)		 1 0.7 3
(2001, 2005)
Hurricane
(Winds > 74 mph)		 1 0.5
 3
(2001)
Major Hurricane
(Winds > 111 mph)		 0 0.1 1
(1912, 1932, 1956, 1985, 1999, 2001, 2008)
November 2016 Individual Tropical Cyclones
Name Dates of winds
>39 mph		 Maximum
Sustained Winds		 Minimum
Central Pressure		 Landfall
Hurricane Otto (Cat. 2) November 21st–November 24th* 109 mph 975 mb San Juan de Nicaragua, Nicaragua; Nov. 24th

Significant Events

Otto's origins lay in the southwest Caribbean, where it developed into a named storm on the early afternoon of November 21st. After an initial jog south, the storm maintained a westward track with roughly minimal hurricane strength before strengthening to a Category 2 storm in the hours before its landfall on November 24th along Nicaragua's extreme southern Atlantic Coast. Otto claimed more than 20 lives in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. The storm was also notable for its very late-season development and landfall, particularly for a Caribbean storm. Its landfall, just miles from the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border, was the southernmost landfall in Central America on record. Due in part to its westward track's orientation across a fairly narrow north-south oriented region of Central America, Otto was the first named storm since 1996 to survive an Atlantic-to-Pacific landmass crossing, and the first to survive the crossing in any direction since Hermine in 1999.

East Pacific

November 2016 Tropical Cyclone Counts
Storm Type November 2016 November 1981-2010 Average Record Most for November
Period of Record: 1949-2016
Tropical Storm
(Winds >39 mph)		 2 0.3 2
(1961,1972,2006,2016)
Hurricane
(Winds >74 mph)		 0 0.2
 3
(1957,1983,1985,1998,2003)
Major Hurricane
(Winds >111 mph)		 0 0.0 1
(2011,2015)
November 2016 Individual Tropical Cyclones
Name Dates of winds
>39 mph		 Maximum
Sustained Winds		 Minimum
Central Pressure		 Landfall
Tropical Storm Tina November 13th– November 14th 40 mph 1005 mb N/A
Tropical Storm Otto (Pacific segment) November 25th– November 26th 58 mph 996 mb N/A

Citing This Report

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Monthly Tropical Cyclones Report for November 2016, published online December 2016, retrieved on April 23, 2024 from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/tropical-cyclones/201611.