It's been quite a year in the tropical Atlantic as the 2012 hurricane season officially ended on November 30th. It was an early start for Florida as Tropical Storm Beryl made a rare landfall near Jacksonville on May 28th and was the strongest "pre-season" tropical storm to make landfall. This was followed shortly after by Tropical Storm Debby, who brought heavy rain to parts of central Florida and even helped induce sink holes to form in parts of the area. Debby also marked the earliest formation of the 4th named storm (June 23). Hurricane Isaac hit familiar territory to Hurricane Katrina, but multi-billion dollar improvements to New Orleans levee system by the U.S. Corps of Engineers kept the city safe and was a good test of the levee improvements. Isaac was also one of 8 named storms to develop in the month of August, which ties the record going back to 2004 when we had Hurricane Charley! But by far the most destructive storm was Hurricane (then 'Super Storm') Sandy which brought extensive beach erosion to central Florida's coast, and roughly $60B dollars in damage to the northeast U.S. Sandy was quite a unique storm stemming from its record large size for the Atlantic basic, with a tropical storm force wind field extending over 940 miles across before landfall. The storm also made a never-before-seen left hand turn to move west through New Jersey and brought record flooding to many areas including the NYC and NJ subway systems. Because of its sheer size, Sandy had most "energy" of any tropical system in the Atlantic to date. Let's hope 2013 give us a break, but we're also watching the fact that for a record 7th straight year, no major hurricane has impacted the United States. Here's to hoping our luck doesn't run out. Also, check out this link to a NASA animation showing the rain from the various storms in 2012 from the TRMM satellite (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission). Think of it as a low earth orbit satellite with a radar strapped to it looking down on the earth - and getting some good pictures!