At a Glance

Laura hit Louisiana two years ago this Saturday.Ida's pummeling first began in Louisiana a year ago Monday.It's the peak time for intense hurricanes to form in the Atlantic.

This weekend marks the start of a three-day stretch when the most powerful U.S. hurricanes made landfall in the past two years.

2020 and 2021 had a combined , including eight hurricanes. That's an astronomical number in back-to-back years – for comparison, an average season typically has one to two U.S. hurricane landfalls.

Ida in 2021 and Laura in 2020 were the two most intense hurricanes at U.S. landfall in the last two seasons. Both were at strong Category 4 strength when they hit the Louisiana coast with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.

Laura (left) and Ida (right) when they made landfall.

(Satellite via NOAA)

Laura's landfall happened two years ago this Saturday near Cameron and Lake Charles, Louisiana, where it caused catastrophic wind and storm surge damage.

Capitol One Bank Tower is seen with its windows blown out in the downtown area of Lake Charles, Louisiana, after Hurricane Laura passed through on Aug. 27, 2020.

(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

A year ago this coming Monday is when Ida made its devastating strike on southeastern Louisiana. Ida's legacy didn't end at the coast since its inland trek went on to produce prolific flooding in the Northeast as its moisture interacted with a stalled front.

The two hurricanes were far and away the most expensive and deadly of their respective seasons.

Ida had a damage cost of $78.7 billion (CPI adjusted) and killed 96 people from the Louisiana coast to the Northeast. Laura's coastal strike amounted to $26 billion in damage (CPI adjusted) and claimed 42 lives.

A barge settles on a bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021, in Lafitte, Louisiana.

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Both hurricanes struck at a time of the calendar year when the Atlantic season is typically at its peak ripeness for intense hurricanes to form – from late August through September. Some seasons like 2020 have had major hurricanes strike well into October.

So even though the , it's a reminder that much of the season is still ahead and coastal residents should remain vigilant.

Need more proof? An average Atlantic hurricane season produces , based on the 1991-2020 average. What's most important, however, is where any of those potential storms track for land impacts.

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