Figure 2. The YOK-G_TC reconstruction compared to documentary records of hurricane landfall in the Caribbean and North Atlantic Basins.

Frequency distributions (relative %) of hurricanes affecting (a) the entire North Atlantic Basin and locations along the western margin of the North Atlantic (b) Bermuda, (c) Florida, (d) Puerto Rico, and (e) Jamaica, calculated from previously published documentary data²⁶,²⁷,⁵⁷. Data are presented in 50-year time slices between 1551 and 1998, and are compared to the frequency distribution of TCs affecting (f) Belize (this study). The relative % occurrence for each site represents the total number of storms recorded during each 50-year time slice compared with the total number of storms that impacted the site since 1551 A.D. Because the YOK-G_TC record terminates at 1983, the final 1951 to 1998 time slice presented in (f) is based on the HURDAT2 western Caribbean TC count. The blue arrow illustrates the north-eastward progression of mean TC track schematically. The apparent decrease in relative % hurricane occurrence at all sites since 1950 is a result of numerous storms that passed within 320 km of Florida and Bermuda since 1950 but not close enough to affect the observational record (see Supplementary Information).