Larry Bell dispels the myth that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma were “the worst ever” and made so by anthropogenic global warming. Neither was either. See his “No, Hurricanes Aren’t More Frequent or Severe” for a tidy historical review that includes this:

A review of North Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane patterns fails to reveal any worsening trend over more than a century. The recent Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey and Hurricane Irma actually ended an almost 12-year-long drought of U.S. landfall Category 3-5 hurricanes since Wilma in 2005, whereas 14 even stronger Category 4-5 monsters occurred between 1926 and 1969.

Harvey lost its Category 4 status shortly after making landfall, but nevertheless, caused catastrophic flood damage as a rain event along the southeast Texas coast. The Houston area received 52 inches of rainfall in four days.

Nevertheless, this wasn’t entirely unique either. Tropical Cyclone Amelia dumped 48 inches on Texas in 1978; Tropical Storm Claudette inundated the town of Alvin, Texas, with 54 inches in 1979, emptying 43 inches in just 24 hours; and Hurricane Easy deluged Florida with 45.2 inches in 1950.

The 2005 and 1961 seasons shared records for their seven major U.S. landfall hurricanes since 1946 when the instrumented wind and pressure database was first considered to be relatively reliable. The year 1983 set the record for the least number with only one.

(Larry Bell is a professor and endowed professor at the University of Houston where he directs the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and heads the graduate program in space architecture. Larry is also a contributor to Forbes.com with a twice-weekly Op-Ed column titled “The Bell Tells for You.” His book “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax” is available on Amazon and Kindle.)