Every Storm since 1851: Where Tropical Cyclones Form, Where They Hit, and Whether They Are Getting Stronger

I map every tropical cyclone in NOAA's International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS v04r01), 13,186 storms and depressions from 1851 to 2025, and use the archive to describe where storms form, where they make landfall and whether they are getting stronger, with attention to how the record itself has changed. Since 1980, 89.1 storms a year have reached tropical storm strength and 47.3 hurricane strength, with no clear trend in the number. Only 3.8% of storms form within 5 degrees of the equator. Intersecting every six-hourly segment with Natural Earth coastlines, I find that from 1980 to 2025 China was hit by the most storms (263), the Philippines by the most at typhoon strength (129) and Category 3 or more (67), and that Guangdong is the most-hit coast (118). Using only the US agencies' 1-minute winds, the share of storms reaching Category 4 or 5 rose from 16.8% in 1980 to 2002 to 21.2% in 2003 to 2025 (two-proportion test p < 0.001), while the share reaching Category 3 or more did not change clearly. The latitude of peak intensity moved poleward by 45 km a decade in the Northern Hemisphere (95% interval 17 to 72), driven by the western North Pacific. Before about 1970 the record misses many storms, especially weak ones far from land, so long-run comparisons are not reliable, and some of the recent intensity change may reflect changing measurement. Interactive version: https://maps.tristanhotham.com/hurricane-tracks/. Data and code: https://github.com/Tristan-Hotham/hurricane-tracks. Blog post: https://blog.tristanhotham.com/2026/10/31/hurricane-tracks/. Data: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, IBTrACS v04r01 (Knapp et al. 2010; Gahtan et al. 2024), NOAA data with no copyright restrictions; Natural Earth (public domain).