In this final installment of a three-part series recapping some of the most dramatic and significant events of 2024, I’ll start with a look at the record-setting hurricane season that recently ended. And then, to balance things out, I’ll finish with some dazzling events that brought us great beauty during the year.

But first, for Part 1 of the series, go here. And for Part 2, here.

And now, let’s get to it — Part 3 of “A Year on Planet Earth”:

Above Average Atlantic Hurricane Season

The Atlantic Hurricane season didn’t quite live up to some forecasts of hyper-activity with as many as two dozen named storms. But it still set notable records — and some storms caused devastating damage.

During the official season, from June 1 to Nov. 30, 18 named storms swirled in the Atlantic basin. (Named storms have winds of 39 mph or greater.) Eleven of these had winds of 74 mph or greater, qualifying them as hurricanes. Of these, five intensified to major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or more.

All told, five hurricanes swept onto land in the continental United States, with two of them making landfall as major hurricanes.

In Part 1 of this series, I featured an image of Hurricane Beryl taken from the International Space Station on July 1. It shows the sprawling storm from a dramatic oblique angle. At the time, the cyclone’s winds were howling at 150 miles per hour. Above, I’ve included a dramatic close-up satellite image of Beryl’s eye, also acquired on July 1.

Beryl was notable because it was the earliest Atlantic basin Category-5 hurricane on record, and the strongest June and July hurricane ever recorded in the basin. She roared across parts of the Caribbean and the Yucatán Peninsula, making landfall in the United States along the Gulf Coast as a Category-1 storm.

The usual peak of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season saw a bit of a lull, but then activity came roaring back with record-breaking storms. Hurricane Helene was one of them. Seen in the GOES-16 satellite image above, it stretches across a vast swath of the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Helene truly was huge. At its biggest extent, it was 420 miles wide. That made her larger than all but two Gulf of Mexico storms since 1988, according to an analysis by Colorado State University hurricane scientist Phil Klotzbach.

Helene made landfall on the Florida Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 26. After tearing things apart and pushing up inundating storm surges along the coast, Helene swept north, causing catastrophic flooding across the southern Appalachians, as well as widespread wind damage all the way to the North Carolina mountains. The storm ultimately killed more than 200 people.

Hurricane Milton also was a notable storm of 2024. It made landfall as a Category-3 near Siesta Key, Florida, on October 9, triggering an outbreak of 46 tornadoes, causing rainfall amounts of 10-15 inches (and higher) that led to flooding. Milton also pushed up a destructive storm surge between Siesta Key, Florida, and Ft. Myers Beach, Florida.

But arguably Milton’s biggest claim to fame was how quickly it intensified. Its 90-mile-per-hour increase in wind speed over 24 hours was among the most rapid intensifications ever observed in the Atlantic Basin.

On the flip side of this story is what happened in the Pacific. Hurricane season activity was below-normal for both the eastern Pacific basin and central Pacific basin and fell within predicted ranges, according to NOAA.

In Happier News, 2024 Brought us Much Beauty Too

When I first saw the image above, it stopped me dead in my tracks. I’ve seen the aurora borealis many times from the ground in Northern Norway, and I’ve always been awe-struck. But this image, looking down from the International Space Station on the Northern Lights shimmering above the surface of the Earth was unlike anything I had seen before.

Here’s another view:

I could imagine myself on the station (and, in fact, even had a dream about it), my face plastered to the oval window looking spellbound at what I might be tempted to call an “otherworldy” scene passing below — except for it being very much of our world.

As I wrote in a story about this on Oct. 22, the beautiful display was caused by a massive X-class solar flare, the largest kind, and an accompanying outburst of solar plasma and magnetic field called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, that raced toward Earth. (For an image of a large X-flare exploding from the Sun, see Part 1 of the series.) The result was that millions more people than usual were treated to displays of the red, green and pink auroral lights in the sky. You usually must travel to far northern areas (or far southern ones in the Southern Hemisphere) to see dramatic displays like this. But overnight on Oct. 10 and 11, they lit up the skies as far south as Texas!

As I’m writing this on New Years Eve, the sun has once again launched a series of CMEs at Earth, and these are already causing the skies to light up above Finland — as this screenshot of a live webcam view shows:

To check out the live webcam on Youtube for yourself, go here.

Iceland Volcanic Eruption Redux

The first image I shared in Part 1 of the series was a view from space of a volcanic eruption last winter in Iceland that sent brilliant, burning orange lava coursing over white snow. In remote sensing images like that, the contrast between the fire and ice was quite stunning. So here’s another view of the scene acquired by a different satellite:

That eruption was part of a series that began in December of 2023 and continued into early 2024. As predicted, it did not fade. And in November, satellites once again captured beautiful images of a new eruption — like this one:

In late November, lava crept into the outskirts of the world famous Blue Lagoon hot springs resort.

The Landsat view above truly does make it seem like Earth’s crust has cracked open, allowing us to peer into the burning bowels of the Earth. And in a sense, that’s right.

Iceland lies along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North America and Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling apart. On Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, this is causing fissures to open in the curst, allowing lava to well up from a heat source deep in Earth’s mantle.

Last But Very Much Not Least, Hawaii!

You may well have heard of the spectacular pre-Christmas eruption of the Kīlauea volcano on Hawaii. (My colleague here at Discover Erik Klemetti wrote it about here.) It was heralded by a swarm of earthquakes, and then the opening of fissures in the floor of the Halema’uma’u caldera. Fountains of lava soon began spewing skyward, and the molten rock spread out quickly along the bottom of the caldera.

It somehow seems appropriate and uplifting to finish this series with images of these volcanic events, which are helping to renew the surface of our ancient planet. They’re also providing spurts (literally and figuratively) of creative energy that reminds us just how dynamic, resilient and utterly awesome our home truly is.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2025 brings you happiness and many wondrous experiences of nature.