Hurricane season in Florida starts June 1 and ends November 30. That’s the official Atlantic basin season, and it covers the Gulf, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic — so it applies to every part of the state, coast and interior alike. The National Hurricane Center starts issuing routine tropical weather outlooks on May 15, two weeks before the season formally opens.
But the calendar dates aren’t the useful part. The useful part is knowing when in the season Florida actually gets hit, and what you should have finished doing before then.
The dates that matter
| Date | What it means |
|---|---|
| May 15 | NHC begins routine tropical weather outlooks — the unofficial start of watching |
| June 1 | Atlantic hurricane season officially begins |
| Mid-August | Activity ramps sharply; the busy stretch starts |
| September 10 | Statistical peak of the Atlantic season |
| Mid-October | Activity falls off, but late-season Gulf storms remain a real Florida risk |
| November 30 | Season officially ends |
Florida’s recent history maps onto that curve almost exactly. Irma came ashore on September 10, 2017, and knocked out power to millions of customers across the state. Ian made landfall on September 28, 2022, leaving more than 2.6 million customers dark, some for a week or more in late-September heat. Milton followed on October 9, 2024, putting more than 3.4 million Florida customers out — including roughly 88,500 OUC customers in Orlando, a hundred-plus miles from where it came ashore.
Three storms, three different landfall points, all inside the September–October window. If you’re going to prepare once, prepare for late summer.
What to have done, and when
By June 1 — the things that sell out later
- Backup power, charged and tested against your real loads
- A week of water and shelf-stable food
- Prescription refills timed so you’re never at the end of a supply in September
- Photos of your roof, windows, and belongings for the insurance file
By mid-August — the things that need daylight and a dry day
- Trim branches over service drops (this is the single biggest cause of inland outages)
- Clear gutters and check window and door seals
- Confirm your shutters or panels actually fit and the hardware is all there
When a storm is named — the things that take an hour
- Top up the backup battery and every device in the house
- Fill the car’s tank before the run on stations starts
- Freeze water bottles to buy your fridge extra cold hours
- Move outdoor furniture in
Note also that Florida has repeatedly run a disaster-preparedness sales-tax holiday on storm supplies, though the dates and the list of eligible items change from year to year — check the Florida Department of Revenue for the current year’s rules before you buy.
Power is the part people underestimate
Everything on the list above is a one-time errand except one: electricity. A Florida hurricane outage is measured in days, and it happens in the hottest, most humid part of the year. Food spoils in about four hours once the fridge door starts getting opened. Phones die. Anyone in the house on a CPAP or a nebulizer is on a clock.
And if you have rooftop solar, it will not help you. A grid-tied array shuts down automatically the instant the grid fails — an anti-islanding rule that keeps power off lines that crews are working on. That’s why so many Florida homes with panels on the roof still sat in the dark after Ian and Milton. Only a battery, or a standalone solar generator, keeps your circuits alive.
That’s what the HomePower 3000 at the top of this page is sized for: roughly 3,000Wh a day of essentials, refilled by its own panels each afternoon the sun comes back.
▶ Shop the HomePower 3000 use code DEAL5
If keeping central air conditioning running is non-negotiable — and in a September outage with someone vulnerable in the house, that’s a fair call — the step up is the Solar Generator 5000 Plus: 5,040Wh, 7,200W, 120V and 240V, expandable to 60kWh.
▶ Shop the Solar Generator 5000 Plus — runs central AC
The sizing question, answered quickly
| What you want to keep on | Daily energy | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Fridge, Wi-Fi, phones, fans, CPAP | ~3,000Wh | HomePower 3000 |
| The above plus a window AC in one room | ~9,000Wh | HomePower 3600 Plus |
| The above plus central AC | 25,000Wh+ | Solar Generator 5000 Plus |
Our full breakdown — load-by-load sizing, what each unit runs, and how Florida’s utilities restore power — is in the Florida hurricane battery backup guide. If you’re in Central Florida, the Orlando backup power guide covers the inland version of the problem.
Don’t wait for the cone
The predictable failure is buying during the storm week. Once a system is in the Gulf, every store in the state is stripped, and shipping stops being reliable exactly when you need it. Backup power bought in May or June is charged, tested, and boring by the time September arrives — which is the entire point.
Keep reading: Best battery backup for Florida hurricanes · Hurricane backup power in Orlando · Florida solar incentives & costs