Storms’ double punch has precedent

In one of the cruelest twists of this history-making hurricane season, Jeanne plowed ashore late Saturday almost exactly where Frances did three weeks earlier.

But that’s not a first for Florida -- or even for the same stretch of coastline.

At least three other times in the past hundred years, the same point has been clobbered by two hurricanes in the same year, all within 80 miles of where Jeanne and Frances made their twin appearances.

“To have the same area, the same people, affected twice in the same season is amazing and unfortunate,” said Dan Brown, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center near Miami. “But it’s happened before.”

Frances and Jeanne do take the dubious prize for delivering their double punch in the shortest time frame. They made landfall 20 days and about five miles apart near southern Hutchinson Island, just east of Stuart in St. Lucie County.

Seventy-six years earlier, and about 20 miles to the south, the first storm of the 1928 hurricane season barreled ashore near the Palm Beach-Martin County line in early August. Names weren’t given to storms in those days.

Forty days later, on Sept. 16, Florida’s deadliest hurricane made landfall at virtually the same spot.

Taking almost the same route Jeanne took across the lower peninsula, the powerful Category 4 tempest killed more than 2,300 people who lived near Lake Okeechobee. They drowned when the lake sloshed over its then-undiked rim.

Nineteen years later, the fourth and eighth storms of the 1947 hurricane season hammered virtually the same location at the Broward-Palm Beach County line 25 days apart.

And in 1964, Hurricanes Cleo and Isbell dissected the Broward County city of Hollywood 49 days apart.

But Jeanne and Frances may stand out in history because they are twins born in one of the meanest hurricane seasons on record.

With about two months remaining, the 2004 season already has spawned six major hurricanes with winds greater than 110 mph. On average, there are usually two.

Jeanne and Frances also teamed up with Hurricanes Charley and Ivan to hammer the Sunshine State a record four times. Only Texas has been affected by four hurricanes in a single season, way back in 1886.

In addition to their targets, Jeanne and Frances share other similarities.

Both ballooned into huge systems before landfall, about 400 miles in diameter, and both had large eyes. Jeanne’s was about 40 miles in diameter and Frances’ about 45 miles.

Both pounded the Bahamas on their way to Florida and, of course, both curved to the northwest and backhanded Orlando. Just before landfall, though, Frances slowed down and weakened, and Jeanne sped up and strengthened.

While a noteworthy rarity, a double punch to the same area in the same season is easy to explain, at least for meteorologist Jim Lushine at the National Weather Service in Miami. Atmospheric steering currents often stay in the same area for weeks at a time, Lushine said, so when hurricanes form in the same general area, as Frances and Jeanne did, they can be steered along similar paths.

Lushine, though, is loath to subscribe any malicious intent to Florida’s evil twins. They were, he said, just doing their jobs.

“Hurricanes are nature’s transport mechanisms,” he said. “Their job is to redistribute heat and moisture in the tropics to the colder or higher latitudes. We just happen to be sitting in the main truck route.”

Ken Kaye of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel contributed to this report. Maya Bell can be reached at mbell@orlandosentinel.com or 305-810-5003.