Pre-1600 Atlantic hurricane seasons


This is a list of all known or suspected Atlantic hurricanes before 1600. Although most storms likely went unrecorded, and many records have been lost, recollections of hurricane occurrences survive from some sufficiently populated coastal areas, and rarely, ships at sea that survived the tempests.
Observation data for years before 1492 is completely unavailable because most natives of North America lacked written languages to keep records in the pre-Columbian era, and most records in written Mesoamerican languages either do not survive or have not been deciphered and translated. Scientists now regard even data from the early years of the Columbian era as suspicious because Renaissance scientists and sailors made no distinction between tropical cyclones and extratropical systems, and incomplete because European exploration of North America and European colonization of the Americas reached only scattered areas in the 16th century.
However, palaeotempestological research allows reconstruction of pre-historic hurricane activity trends on timescales of centuries to millennia. A theory has been postulated that an anti-phase pattern exists between the Gulf of Mexico coast and the East Coast of the United States. During the quiescent periods, a more northeasterly position of the Azores High would result in more hurricanes being steered towards the Atlantic coast. During the hyperactive period, more hurricanes were steered towards the Gulf coast as the Azores High—controlled by the North Atlantic oscillation—was shifted to a more southwesterly position near the Caribbean. In fact, few major hurricanes struck the Gulf coast during 3000 BC–1400 BC and again during the most recent millennium; these quiescent intervals were separated by a hyperactive period during 1400 BC and AD 1000, when catastrophic hurricanes frequently struck the Gulf coast, and their landfall frequencies increased by a factor of three to five. On the Atlantic coast, probability of landfalling hurricanes has doubled in the recent millennium compared to the one and a half millennia before.
Using sediment samples from Puerto Rico, the Gulf coast and the Atlantic coast from Florida to New England, Michael E. Mann et al. found consistent evidence of a peak in Atlantic tropical cyclone activity during the Medieval Warm Period followed by a subsequent lull in activity.

Systems

– only paleotempestological evidence

Pre-1500

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1500–1524

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1525–1549

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1550–1574

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The French fleet-of-war that headed for Saint Augustine included:
The French vessels that stayed in St. Johns River at Fort Caroline included:
Also associated with French forces were:
As the French fleet approached Saint Augustine on, a breeze broke the calm and then increased into a gale, a "furious tempest", a "severe storm", and even a hurricane, driving the French ships unintentionally south of Saint Augustine. As the storm intensified on, it drove probably all four French vessels aground at different points between the south shore of Matanzas Inlet and Cape Canaveral. In one shipwreck, at least five Frenchmen perished, and the desperate survivors, unable to salvage food or supplies, decided to walk northward to Fort Caroline. Indians killed three more Frenchmen the next day.
On, admiral Menéndez began to march his Spanish troops overland through the raging tempest to attack Fort Caroline. Menéndez and his troops reached the fort almost undetected in the rainy, windy predawn of and quickly captured it without sustaining any casualties. Following the instructions of Philip II of Spain, the victorious Spaniards executed most of the Frenchmen as Protestant heretics, whom the Spanish then labeled as luteranos. René Goulaine de Laudonnière, Jacques le Moyne, :fr:Nicolas Le Challeux|Nicolas Le Challeux, and perhaps as many as 64 others escaped through the tempest across the marshes to the Perle and Lévrière. These French ships searched for survivors until but then returned to Europe.
After their victory at Fort Caroline, the Spanish troops returned to Saint Augustine. Meanwhile, the storm finally cleared by. The Spaniards at Saint Augustine then learned of a frigate wrecked on the mouth of a river four to six leagues to the south, now known as Matanzas Inlet. The desperate French survivors lacked adequate food, water, and munitions. By, Spanish troops sought and executed the Protestants as heretics but spared the Catholics and a few others.
The ship that carried Jean Ribault wrecked farther south, possibly near three others; the desperate survivors decided to move northward toward Fort Caroline. He reached Matanzas Inlet and surrendered exhausted on and suffered death as a Protestant heretic on. Of this party, the Spaniards spared only the Catholics and a few others, but many Frenchmen eluded capture. Circa, admiral Menéndez found shipwreck survivors who eluded his slaughters on a beach north of Cape Canaveral. Some surrendered to the Spanish, who spared their lives and removed them away from Florida. Others escaped again to an obscure fate.

1575–1599

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Surviving ships included the 120-ton navío San Sebastián under Diego Hernández from Puerto Rico.
This event may continue as another storm listed for this season. Robert F. Marx accuses Dutch historian Jan Huyghen van Linschoten of misinformation in telling that only 14 or 15 of 220 ships sailing for Iberian Union survived the year and that about 99 disappeared near Florida. He contends that Iberian Union lost only five ships this year: four in this storm in Old Bahama Channel and one returning from Goa. The location of the sinking, "in about 30 degrees of latitude", suggests that the term "Bahama Channel" in various sources may refer to the northern extension of Straits of Florida, not to Old Bahama Channel, as here assumed.
The storm swept two iron cannon from the decks of the San Francisco, heeled over the ship, and left her hold filled with water more than deep. The surviving 34 vessels on 8 November arrived at Vera Cruz badly damaged.
Tropical cyclone status in doubt.
This event may continue the same storm as another event listed for this year.