1886 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1886 Atlantic hurricane season included seven hurricanes that struck or moved across the United States at that intensity, the most ever recorded. The season featured 12 known tropical storms, 10 of which became hurricanes, then-tied for the most. Four of those cyclones became a major hurricane, the highest number until 1893. The season also had the most active June, and reached the modern seasonal average of hurricanes by mid-August. This occurred once more in 1893, and has remained a distant record since. However, with the absence of modern satellites and other remote-sensing technologies, only storms that affected populated land areas or encountered ships at sea were documented. The actual total is likely higher with an average under-count bias estimate of zero to six tropical cyclones per year between 1851 and 1885 and zero to four per year between 1886 and 1910. The first system was initially observed on June 13 over the western Gulf of Mexico, while the final storm was last noted east-southeast of Bermuda on October 26.

The seventh and eleventh systems were first documented in 1996 by José Fernández-Partagás and Henry F. Diaz, in which they also proposed alterations to the known tracks of nearly all other 1886 storms. A 2000 reanalysis by meteorologist Ramón Pérez Suárez resulted in the sixth cyclone being retroactively upgraded to a major hurricane. Although early 21st century reviews of this season by the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project did not add or remove any storms from the official hurricane database (HURDAT), they extended the duration of a few storms and upgraded the sixth system to major hurricane status. In 2014, climate researcher Michael Chenoweth's reanalysis study recommended the addition of one new storm to HURDAT, for a total of 13 cyclones in the 1886 season, as well as modifications to the tracks, duration, and intensity of several systems. However, Chenoweth's reanalysis has yet to be added to HURDAT.

Nearly all known cyclones of the 1886 season impacted land. The strongest cyclone, the fifth system (also known as the Indianola hurricane), peaked as a Category 4 hurricane on the present-day Saffir–Simpson scale. Passing through the Windward Islands and striking Hispaniola, Cuba, and Texas, the hurricane caused at least 75 fatalities and about $3.1 million (1886 USD) in damage in Texas alone. Between late June and early July, the season's third storm led to more than 21 deaths as it impacted Jamaica, Cuba, and Florida. Many countries and territories around the eastern and central Caribbean experienced the effects of the season's sixth cyclone in August, with at least five people killed on Saint Vincent. Also during that month, the seventh storm drowned five people over the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The final hurricane to strike the United States, the tenth system, killed at least 196 people in Louisiana and Texas and inflicted about $250,000 in the eastern portions of the former alone. Collectively, the cyclones of the 1886 season caused more than $3.35 million in damage and over 302 fatalities.