HOW PHENOMENAL IS HURRICANE SAM?

Chances are you never heard of Hurricane Sam because he is not a threat to the USA. However, Sam has been a hurricane in the Atlantic for 12 days now:

• Attained tropical storm status on September 22 at 35 MPH.
• September 23    50 MPH
•                   24    75  (a hurricane)
•                   25  140
•                   26  150
•                   27  120
•                   28  130
•                   29  140
•                   30  145
• October       1  150
•                     2  125
•                     3  100
•                     4  100
•                     5    80

Amazingly enough, Sam has long been in the North Atlantic, and is still a hurricane.  Recently, he circled between Greenland and Iceland, and finally today decided to move east, and will skirt just south of Iceland.

So how phenomenal is this?  Hardly, for the most impressive tropical cyclone on record was Hurricane/Typhoon John in 1994:

• Lasted for 31 days from August 11 to September 11.
• Never made landfall.
• Formed east of the International Date Line, so was first called a hurricane.
• Then crossed west to become a typhoon.
• Traveled 8,188 miles.  How far is this?
• New York City to San Francisco = 2902 miles.
• NYC to Honolulu = 4957.
• NYC to Tokyo = 6736.
• NYC to Shanghai = 7364.
• NYC to Hanoi = 8166.

Wikipedia said John only traveled 7165 miles, showing the following path:

This has long been controversial, but there apparently are hurricanes that first form off the west coast of Africa near Cape Verde, which is 8406 miles from Honolulu, as something called a tropical wave.  Hawaii's worst hurricane in history, Iniki, is "suspected" to have started there, moved across the Atlantic, made landfall over Central America, then into the Pacific.  Conditions allowed Iniki to head towards Hawaii, where I watched it all unfold in horror on TV from Colorado devastating Kauai.  He  traveled further north a thousand miles before dissipating.  If you add up the miles, Iniki had a track more than 9000 miles long.  No doubt this was actually the longest traveled tropical storm no matter how far Hurricane John traversed.  But the origination of both remain controversial.  Wikipedia above also only shows Iniki in the Pacific.

The 8188 miles credited by others to Hurricane John assumes origination off Africa:

The origins of Hurricane John were thought by the United States National Hurricane Center(NHC) to be from a tropical wave that moved off the coast of Africa on July 25, 1994.^[3][4] The wave subsequently moved across the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean without distinction, before it crossed Central America and moved into the Eastern Pacific Ocean on or around August 8.^[3][4]

John reached a maximum sustained wind speed of 175 MPH (equaled that of the 1959 Hurricane Patsy  as second highest for the Central Pacific--the strongest was Hurricane Patricia in 2015, which reached a monstrous 215 MPH--but because records depend on what parameter and sustained time, some credit Typhoon Tip with the lowest pressure and greatest diameter of 1380 miles, but only had a top speed of 190 MPH) on August 22, when it was 345 miles south of Hawaii.  A ridge of high pressure saved us, for John kept going west.  He began to turn north just before reaching Johnston Atoll, crossing the International Date Line on August 27.  Went around in circles and became a tropical storm, but again strengthened into a hurricane on September 8, and crossed back east across the IDL to become a hurricane.  By then he was close to Midway Island.  Went north and on September 10 began dissipating 1000 miles south of Unalaska Island.

I made an attempt to determine the length of Hurricane John's track, and my tally also exceeded 9000 miles, like Hurricane Iniki.  So how un-phenomenal is Hurricane Sam in the Atlantic Ocean?  Above average, at best:

• Since 1851 there have been 935 hurricanes in the Atlantic.
• The longest duration was San Ciriaco in 1899 of 28 days.
• Hurricane Allen in 1980 attained a speed of 190 MPH and eventually made landfall at the U.S.-Mexican border in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Hurricane Faith in 1966 went 6850 miles.
• Hurricane Ivan in 2004 spawned 120 tornadoes.
• 
  The Great Hurricane of 1780 killed from 22,000-27,501, and is suspected of reaching 200 MPH, which would make it strongest in the Atlantic.  However the Great Bhola Cyclone of 1970 might have killed up to half million in Pakistan.  Several other cyclones and typhoons brought deaths of 300,000 and more in the Indian Ocean and West Pacific.
• Hurricane Katrina of 2005, with a top speed of 175 MPH, caused damages of $125 billion.  Hurricane Iniki over Kauai is credited with $3 billion.

With all of that, it is indeed surprising that no hurricane has made landfall over the Big Island of Hawaii in recorded history.  Kauai has suffered from several, but the other islands have been so far spared.

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