The 1981 season

Unnamed tropical depression (1981)

Unnamed tropical depression peaked at 30 kt in the North Atlantic between August 17, 1981 and August 21, 1981.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Unnamed tropical depression. Open it to see storms, cones and warnings on the map.

Open the live radar with storms, cones and warnings

Radar mosaic and map layers from NOAA MRMS. Boundaries from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.

The storm

Basin
North Atlantic
Dates
August 17, 1981 to August 21, 1981
Peak strength
Tropical Depression, 30 kt (35 mph)
Landfall
No; closest approach 208 km (129 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.0
Identifier
AL111981

Deaths and damage

No source this site reads publishes a machine-readable casualty or damage figure for a storm of this era. The National Hurricane Center’s season tables begin in 1995 and carry deaths and damage only from 2005 in the Atlantic and 2020 in both basins; the US Storm Events record begins in 1996.

Track

Time (UTC)PositionWindPressureStatus
Aug 17, 06:0012.8N 33.0W20 ktTropical depression
Aug 17, 12:0013.0N 34.5W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 17, 18:0013.3N 36.0W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 18, 00:0013.6N 37.4W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 18, 06:0013.8N 38.9W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 18, 12:0014.0N 40.5W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 18, 18:0014.0N 42.2W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 00:0014.0N 44.0W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 06:0013.9N 46.0W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 12:0013.8N 47.7W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 18:0013.6N 49.0W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 00:0013.4N 50.3W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 06:0013.1N 51.9W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 12:0013.0N 53.1W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 18:0012.5N 54.5W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 21, 00:0012.0N 55.7W20 ktTropical depression
Aug 21, 06:0011.6N 56.9W20 ktTropical depression
Aug 21, 12:0011.0N 58.0W20 ktTropical depression
Aug 21, 18:0010.3N 59.1W15 ktTropical depression

Other North Atlantic storms of 1981

What this means

A best track is the record a warning agency settles on after the storm, not what it said at the time: position, maximum sustained wind and central pressure every six hours, revised against every observation that came in later. Category is the Saffir-Simpson scale, which runs from Category 1 at 64 kt to Category 5 at 137 kt and reads wind only, so it says nothing about surge or rain. Accumulated cyclone energy adds up the square of the wind through the storm's life, so it counts strength and duration together.

Sources

Storm history from NOAA NCEI’s International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS), which merges the official best track of every warning agency. Live storms, cones, watches and warnings from the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Archived radar from NOAA’s Level II archive.

The National Hurricane Center has published no tropical cyclone report for this storm.