1984 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1984 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active since 1971, though the season was below average in hurricanes and major hurricanes. It officially began on June 1, 1984, and lasted until November 30, 1984. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin. Although the first tropical depression developed northeast of the Bahamas on June 11, no tropical cyclones intensified into a tropical or subtropical storm until August 19, an unusually late date. The final system, Hurricane Lili, dissipated near the north coast of the Dominican Republic on December 24. The 1984 season was an active one in terms of named storms, but most of them were weak and stayed at sea. Most of the cyclones tracked through the northwest subtropical Atlantic west of the 50th meridian to near the Eastern coast of the United States between mid-August and early October.

The most intense tropical cyclone of the season was Hurricane Diana, which peaked as a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale. Meandering erratically offshore the Carolinas, Diana weakened to a Category 2 hurricane before making landfall in North Carolina. Diana was the first hurricane to strike a nuclear power plant, but without incident. Hurricane Klaus, the most damaging storm of the season, caused $157 million (1984 USD) in damage in the Lesser Antilles, with a vast majority of that total in the British Virgin Islands. Also of note, Tropical Storm Fran became the second-deadliest cyclone in the history of the Cabo Verde Islands, killing 29 to 32 people. Overall, the systems of the 1984 season caused about $233.74 million in damage and 41-44 fatalities. Unusually, no hurricanes developed directly from tropical waves in 1984, which usually are the source of the strongest storms in an Atlantic hurricane season.