1888 Atlantic hurricane season

The 1888 Atlantic hurricane season was significantly less active compared to the previous season but still featured several landfalls in the United States. Overall, the season had nine tropical cyclones, six of which intensified into hurricane, while two of those became a major hurricane. However, in the absence of modern satellites and other remote-sensing technologies, only storms that affected populated land areas or encountered ships at sea are known, so the actual total could be higher. An undercount bias of zero to six tropical cyclones per year between 1851 and 1885 and zero to four per year between 1886 and 1910 has been estimated. The first system was initially detected over the northwestern Gulf of Mexico on June 16, while the ninth and final storm transitioned into an extratropical cyclone offshore North Carolina on November 25.

Neither meteorologists José Fernández-Partagás and Henry F. Diaz in 1996 nor the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project in the early 21st century added or removed any previously undocumented storms from the official hurricane database (HURDAT). However, both modified the tracks of several cyclones. More recently, a 2014 reanalysis study by climate researcher Michael Chenoweth recommended the removal of the second storm and the addition of six cyclones not currently listed in HURDAT, but these proposals have not yet been approved.

The most intense tropical cyclone of the season, the third system, peaked as a Category 3 hurricane on the present-day Saffir–Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/h) in August. Striking the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana at hurricane intensity, the cyclone caused damage throughout its path and 12 deaths. The next system, also a Category 3 hurricane, crossed the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, and Cuba before making two landfalls in Mexico in early September, inflicting more than $1 million (1888 USD) in damage and 921 fatalities, mostly in Cuba. Later, the season's seventh system drowned nine people at Cedar Key, Florida, and the ninth and final storm resulted in sixteen deaths, fifteen due to maritime incidents. Overall, the cyclones of the 1888 season collectively caused more than $1 million in damage and killed 958 people.