If past performance is any indication, you can cross Texas off the list for a hit by a tropical cyclone for the balance of the season, but not so fast with other areas.

According to Tropical Weather and Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski, “There has never been a tropical storm or hurricane landfall in Texas after Oct. 15.”

By landfall, Kottlowski is referring to the eye or center of the storm passing over Texas soil as it first comes ashore.

“This does not mean there have never been close calls or rainfall from a system nearby in the Gulf of Mexico impacting the state,” Kottlowski said.

Anything is possible, but steering winds this time of the year make it extremely difficult for a tropical storm or hurricane to roll right into Texas from the Gulf.

“Prevailing upper-level winds over Texas now through the remainder of the Atlantic hurricane season are from the west and southwest and drive the storms away,” Kottlowski explained.

Kottlowski cautioned that there have been incidents where a tropical cyclone has formed as close by as the northwestern Gulf and tracked into Louisiana.

The same prevailing upper-level westerly winds this time of the year greatly reduce the chances of a direct strike from a tropical storm or hurricane north of North Carolina in the U.S. This area shrinks southward moving forward into November.

However, Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams pointed out, “There have been hits and major impacts from tropical storms and hurricanes in northeastern U.S. during October.”

Abrams recalled several such storms, including Hurricane Hazel in 1954 which did tremendous damage.

The path of Hurricane Hazel (bold) in October of 1954 against other similar-tracking tropical cyclones in years prior. Sorry, folks; weather satellites were not in operation until April 1, 1960 (TIROS-1). Image from NOAA archives.

Hazel made landfall near the North Carolina/South Carolina border on Oct. 15, but traveled rapidly northward into the mid-Atlantic with widespread flooding and damaging winds.

Granted AccuWeather.com meteorologists do not foresee any such tropical cyclones any time soon that would even resemble Hazel or its damage so late in the season.

This is not to say that tropical moisture cannot stream northward along the Atlantic Seaboard of North America and feed a non-tropical storm with tremendous rainfall potential. One such setup could take place during the middle of next week.

Areas east of Texas in the South are still at risk for a tropical storm hit with Florida in the middle of this risk area through much of the balance of the season.

Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are within the late-season tropical Atlantic and Caribbean formation areas. This late-season risk of course includes Central America, Mexico and the other islands in the Caribbean.

Other locations in the Atlantic, such as Bermuda and Canada from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland have also scored hits with tropical storms and hurricanes this late in the season, but a direct hit in Canada is almostunheard of in November.

Noel as a tropical storm just north of the Bahamas, Nov. 2, 2007. Image from NOAA archives.

Spanning Nov. 6 and 7, 2007, Noel brushed Cape Cod, Mass., with hurricane-force winds and then slammed head on into Nova Scotia.

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If past performance is any indication, you can cross Texas off the list for a hit by a tropical cyclone for the balance of the season, but not so fast with other areas.