Publication Date December 1, 2015 | Weather Underground

Top Ten 2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season Events

Bahamas
Figure 3. Hurricane Joaquin as seen by the GOES-East satellite at 7:45 am EDT October 1, 2015. At the time, Joaquin was an intensifying Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds. The last position of the cargo ship El Faro, in the northwestern eyewall of Joaquin, is shown. Image credit: United States Navy and NOAA.
Figure 3. Hurricane Joaquin as seen by the GOES-East satellite at 7:45 am EDT October 1, 2015. At the time, Joaquin was an intensifying Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds. The last position of the cargo ship El Faro, in the northwestern eyewall of Joaquin, is shown. Image credit: United States Navy and NOAA.

The 2015 Atlantic hurricane season is officially over, and it will go into the books as the most memorable hurricane season to occur during a strong El Niño event...[H]igh wind shear did not extend as far east as usual, allowing several tropical storms to form near the coast of Africa over waters that were near-record warm. Near record-warm to record-warm ocean temperatures were also over more northern reaches of the Atlantic, and helped spur the formation of Hurricane Joaquin and Hurricane Kate. As a result, the 2015 season was able to tally numbers that were not that far below average.