The 1981 season

Unnamed tropical depression (1981)

Unnamed tropical depression peaked at 30 kt in the North Atlantic between August 26, 1981 and August 29, 1981, and made landfall.

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 26, 1981 to August 29, 1981
Peak strength
Tropical Depression, 30 kt (35 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.0
Fastest the center moved
11 kt (13 mph)
Identifier
AL121981

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 26, 18:0020.7N 92.6W20 ktTropical depression
Aug 27, 00:0021.0N 93.6W20 ktTropical depression
Aug 27, 06:0021.2N 94.2W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 27, 12:0021.6N 95.0W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 27, 18:0022.0N 95.9W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 00:0022.3N 96.7W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 06:0022.8N 97.2W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 12:0023.0N 98.0W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 18:0024.0N 98.2W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 29, 00:0024.7N 98.6W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 29, 06:0025.2N 98.8W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 29, 12:0026.0N 99.0WTropical 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.