An unexpected storm blew up in the Caribbean last week. Hurricane Paloma turned into into a monstrous Category 4 storm with winds reaching 225 km/h (140mph). Paloma had already hit the Cayman Islands before it lashed Cuba on Saturday with a 14ft (4m) storm surge. Up to 12in (30cm) of rain had fallen by the time the storm began to die out.

The official hurricane season ended on November 1. Although hurricanes are not unknown at this time of year, only four significant storms have been recorded in November, and Paloma was the second-strongest of them.

This has been a phenomenal year for hurricanes. It is the first season that a large hurricane has struck in every month from July to November, with Bertha, Gustav, Ike, Omar and Paloma. In another record, the US was struck with a barrage of six successive storms – Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike.

The worst of these was Ike – a Category 4 storm with 230 km/h (143mph) winds. It was the most massive Atlantic hurricane recorded, reaching 885km (550miles) wide. Ike also had the highest integrated kinetic energy of any Atlantic storm in history, a measure of its power to cause storm-surge destruction. It was the third-costliest hurricane of all time, causing more than $30 billion of damage in Cuba and the US, with 164 deaths.

Is there any significance to all this? We are currently in a very active hurricane period that could last for several more years. Added to that, many scientists believe that warmer oceans are exacerbating hurricane activity.