SMS:NOAA HURDAT

The North Atlantic hurricane database, or HURDAT, is the database for all tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. SMS is able to read a HURDAT file.

File Format

HEADER

92620 08/16/1992 M=13  2 SNBR= 899 ANDREW      XING=1 SSS=4
Card# MM/DD/Year Days S# Total#... Name........US Hit.Hi US category

DAILY DATA

92580 04/22S2450610  30 1003S2490615  45 1002S2520620  45 1002S2550624  45 1003*
Card# MM/DD&LatLongWindPress&LatLongWindPress&LatLongWindPress&LatLongWindPress

TRAILER

92760 HRCFL4BFL3 LA3
Card# TpHit.Hit.Hit.

HEADER

• Card# = Sequential card number starting at 00005 in 1851
• MM/DD/Year = Month, Day, and Year of storm
• Days = Number of days in which positions are available (note that this also means number of lines to follow of Daily Data and then the one line of the *Trailer)
• S# = Storm number for that particular year (including subtropical storms)
• Total# = Storm number since the beginning of the record (since 1851)
• Name = Storms only given official names since 1950
• US Hit =

• '1' = Made landfall (i.e., the center of the cyclone crossed the coast) on the continental United States as a tropical storm or hurricane,
• '0' = did not make a U.S. landfall

• Hi US category =

• '0' = Used to indicate U.S. tropical storm landfall, but this has not been utilized in recent years
• '1' to '5' = Highest Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale impact in the United States based upon extimated maximum sustained surface winds produced at the coast. See scale below.