Yes, there was another Hurricane Helene 66 years ago, but it never made landfall

Hurricane Helene made landfall late Thursday in northwestern Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm, generating a massive storm surge and knocking out power for millions of people in several states. More than a dozen people died.

But some people online claim this isn’t the first hurricane of the same name to bring damaging winds and heavy rains to the southeastern U.S. Those posts say another Hurricane Helene was recorded around the same time in 1958. 

THE QUESTION

Was there another Hurricane Helene recorded around the same time 66 years ago?

THE SOURCES

• National Weather Service (NWS)
• North Carolina State Climate Office blog post
• NASA

THE ANSWER

Yes, there was another Hurricane Helene recorded around the same time 66 years ago, but it never made landfall. 

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WHAT WE FOUND

In September 1958, another Hurricane Helene was recorded around the same time as the 2024 storm. Though there are similarities between the two, the 1958 hurricane never made an official landfall like the 2024 storm. 

Helene was first recognized as a tropical storm on Sept. 23, 1958, when it was about 300 miles northeast of the Dominican Republic, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). 

The storm quickly strengthened into a hurricane the next day and continued to gain strength as it moved toward the southeastern U.S., the NWS and a blog post from the North Carolina State Climate Office say. 

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale wasn’t used to categorize hurricanes until the 1970s. But if it was in use in 1958, Helene would have been a Category 4 hurricane – just like the 2024 storm. 

By Sept. 27, 1958, the hurricane’s eye was only 80 miles from Charleston, South Carolina. Hurricane warnings were issued throughout the southeastern U.S. and a “direct hit” somewhere in the area “seemed unavoidable,” the NC State Climate Office said. 

Though the hurricane’s eye passed less than 10 miles from North Carolina’s Cape Fear, Helene never made an official landfall. A strong high pressure system that brought unseasonably high temperatures arrived just in time to steer the hurricane back out to sea, the NC State Climate Office said. 

But Helene still brought damaging, hurricane-force winds to the Carolinas in 1958. 

The Wilmington airport in North Carolina reported a wind gust of 135 mph, according to the NWS. Category 4 hurricane wind speeds range from 130 to 156 mph. 

There were some unofficial reports of wind gusts between 150 to 160 mph from Cape Fear that were never verified, according to the NC State Climate Office. 

Though Helene didn’t cause any direct fatalities in 1958, the powerful storm left millions of dollars worth of damage in its wake and forced 5,000 residents into Red Cross disaster shelters, the climate office said. 

There was also another Hurricane Helene in late September 2006, but it never made landfall in the North American mainland, according to NASA.

Helene in 2006 was at one point a powerful Category 3 hurricane before becoming a tropical storm by the time it reached the northern Atlantic Ocean.