A review of the 2009 hurricane, tropical cyclone and typhoon season

2009 was an exceptionally quiet year as regards hurricanes, tropical cyclones and typhoons and this continued the trend of the previous year. This lower activity in most regions is associated with a moderate El Niño which existed in the first half of the year. Global fatalities were relatively few and damage was light. Two regions had above average activity and this was in the east, and northwest. Pacific regions where most of the fatalities and nearly all of the damage occurred in the latter region. There were four category 5 events of which three occurred in the northwest Pacific Region. New research has shown that improved counting of short-lived events must be taken into account when comparing numbers of events over time, also the use of the Madden Julian Oscillation has improved forecasting of landfalls of tropical storms