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FACT BRIEF

Did five hurricanes—Katrina, Gustav, Issac, Harvey and Ida—make US landfall on the same day in different years?

By Kaiyah Clarke
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NO

Contrary to a social media post saying five major hurricanes all hit the U.S. on August 29, two of the five storms made landfall on other days.

The five were closely bunched together on the calendar, however. A scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University said this is because "highly impactful storms typically occur in late August and early September since that's when the Atlantic hurricane season tends to be at its busiest."

Of the five hurricanes listed in the post -- Katrina, Gustav, Isaac, Harvey and Ida -- Katrina, Isaac and Ida did in fact make landfall on the U.S. mainland on August 29, in different years.

According to the National Weather Service, Hurricane Gustav hit on September 1, 2008, and Hurricane Harvey made landfall on on August 26, 2017.

See a full discussion of this at Lead Stories
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
National Weather Service Hurricane Gustav - September 1, 2008
National Weather Service Major Hurricane Harvey
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Lead Stories
Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.