At landfall, Idalia will be FOURTH Major Hurricane to make landfall in the state since 2017. Three have ironically been “I” storms, Irma, Ian and now Idalia. Michael in 2018 was the other.

For comparison we had ZERO major Hurricane landfalls in Florida between 1966 and 1991.

We had only two between 1992 and 2003 (Andrew and Opal). We had four in 2004-05 (Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Wilma) but none between 2006 & 2016.

The storms are getting bigger and stronger in this era – in particular bigger as impacts from Irma and Ian covered the entire Florida peninsula. This storm will end up impacting most of the peninsula but also much of the Big Bend and Panhandle.

Even when not strong, the storms are getting larger. For comparison, Andrew a Category 5 in 1992 basically impacted only four counties (Monroe, Dade, Broward and Collier)- Irma a Category 4 in 2017 impacted the entire peninsula. Ian was similar in that it impacted every county in the peninsula.