Research regarding Atlantic hurricane activity has recently focused on climatic influences in regards to tropical cyclone location and frequency. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) have been the main focus in many of these studies, however not as much research exists regarding these indices in combination with one another.

This study will focus on landfalling hurricane points along the east coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean with regards to differing combinations of the strongest positive, negative and neutral ENSO and NAO events from 1851 until 2010. This will provide an understanding of the prime combinations of these indices, and an idea of the circulation anomalies that may be influenced by these indices. This will be done by using reanalysis data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction / National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP – NCAR) in order to find atmospheric anomalies, and hurricane data will come from the “best track” (HURDAT) data set.

Results from this study can provide us with a greater understanding of where hurricanes are likely to make landfall along the east coast of the United Sates, as well as provide insight to possible atmospheric anomalies that could be assisting in these landfalling locations.