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As we head into the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season,

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I bet you didn’t realize it’s been nine years

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since the United States has had a hurricane make landfall

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that’s been category 3 or higher.

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A category 3 or higher hurricane

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is considered a major storm

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with winds greater than 111mph.

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Of course, storms less than Category 3,

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like Hurricane Sandy still wreaked havoc with heavy rains and coastal storm surges.

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So how rare is it for the U.S. to avoid a major storm for nine years

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Let’s look back at the actual record of hurricane tracks

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for the last several decades.

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Green and yellow lines means they didn’t make landfall

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or they did and weren’t major hurricanes.

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Red lines are the major hurricanes that did make landfall.

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Some years like 1964, 2004, and 2005

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have seen 2 or more storms hit our coasts.

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We can also see that gaps of a few seasons

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with no major storms is common.

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But none as long as nine years.

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A new NASA study used a model to gauge hurricane activity.

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They found that every year, there’s roughly a 40 percent chance

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that one or more category 3 storms

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will make landfall.

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And that a nine year gap only comes along every 177 years.

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But that doesn’t make a major storm any more likely for this year.

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Just like when you flip a coin 9 times in a row

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and you get tails every time,

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the odds of heads versus tails on that tenth flip remain the same.

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Just to be clear, it hasn’t been a quiet nine years for hurricanes.

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They’ve been out there.

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It’s just that the major storms haven’t made landfall.

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Scientists say they haven’t found a single persistent cause for this,

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it could just be luck.