The hurricane season in the U.S. has been very quiet so far this year.

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There were three storms that were given names early in the season, but there hasn't been a named storm since July 3. This will make it the first time since 1997 that there has not been a named storm in the Atlantic basin in the month of August.

This also happened in 1961.

A quiet start to the season does not mean the season will stay quiet.

The year of 1997 only had seven named storms in total and none were very significant. Meanwhile, 1961 was very active in September and October.

As of Tuesday, there are some weak waves developing in the Atlantic, there might be some more activity in the tropics in the next couple of weeks.

The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season will officially come to an end on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021.

The season stretched from May 22 through Nov. 30.

The active season brought 14 tropical storms, three Category 1 hurricanes with winds up to 95 mph, two Category 3 hurricanes with winds nearly 129 mph, and two powerful Category 4 hurricanes with winds near 156 mph.

This left a total of 21 storms being named throughout the entire season. Nine of these named storms made landfall in the United States.

Hurricane Ida was the most powerful storm to make landfall in the United States in 2021 with maximum winds topping out at 150 mph. Ida made landfall at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, at 11:55 a.m. on Aug. 29.

The 2021 hurricane season will end as the third most active on record.

Tropical Storm Beta is gaining strength off the coast of southern Texas, as Subtropical Storm Alpha makes landfall in Portugal Friday afternoon; both are making history because of their names and timing.

This is only the second time in recent history more than 21 significant storms in the Atlantic have been named in a year. Tropical Storm Beta is number 23.

The National Hurricane Center uses a list of 21 names each year to distinguish large storms they are tracking in the Atlantic Ocean. Once those names are all used, scientists use the Greek alphabet to name storms.

This is the second time since the naming conventions were started in the 1950s that the Greek alphabet will be needed. In 2005, 27 storms formed and the last six were named after the Greek alphabet.

In that year, Tropical Storm Alpha didn’t form until mid-October.

Subtropical Storm Alpha is not expected to last very long now that it is over land, bringing winds and rain to Portugal and Spain.

Tropical Storm Beta is gaining strength and could become a hurricane early next week before making landfall along the southern Texas coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday, exactly 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the state and became the deadliest and costliest hurricane to hit the U.S. in recorded history.

Video above: Economic damage from Ida not as bad as feared

The two storms share some key similarities in terms of their date, strength, location and their destructive impact on the region's power grid and water systems. But the major hurricanes also have clear differences in their paths — and New Orleans and its rebuilt levees are different, too, from that fateful day 16 years ago that left over 1,800 people dead.

A day after Ida hit the state, here's an early look at how the two storms compare.

Their strength and path

Though both major hurricanes hit Louisiana, the two storms differ in clear meteorological ways and in their paths through the state.

Katrina first made landfall early on Aug. 29, 2005, as a Category 3 storm with maximum winds of about 125 mph near Buras, Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said. It had been a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico and weakened significantly before making landfall, but that prior strength meant that it created a very high storm surge.

Katrina was also huge in geographic size, and hurricane-force winds stretched up to 110 miles from its center.

The storm brought hurricane conditions to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and dumped 8 to 12 inches of rain along its track. Importantly, Katrina caused major storm surge flooding 25 to 28 feet above normal tide levels along parts of the Mississippi coast, and storm surge flooding of 10 to 20 feet above normal tide levels along the southeastern Louisiana coast, according to the National Weather Service.

Ida, meanwhile, made landfall around midday Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph near Port Fourchon, the NHC said. Ida had rapidly strengthened in the 24 hours leading up to landfall but was smaller in size than Katrina, and hurricane-force winds stretched only up to 45 miles from its center.

Ida also moved slower than Katrina. Ida traveled about 100 miles inland in the first 12 hours after landfall Sunday, while Katrina moved about 240 miles inland in its first 12 hours after landfall.

The two storms also differ in the path they took through Louisiana. Ida first made landfall at Port Fourchon, about 40 miles west-southwest of Buras, where Katrina first hit. Ida then moved into Louisiana west of New Orleans, while Katrina pushed east of the city in 2005.

Hurricanes spin in a counter-clockwise direction, and the eastern side of a hurricane has the strongest winds, so New Orleans experienced each storm differently. In 2005, Katrina passed east of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, so its winds pushed water from the lake south into the city, causing more flooding.

This weekend, Ida passed to the west of the city, bringing stronger winds to New Orleans but also pushing the lake's water away from the city.

"I think that we're going to see the wind damage (with Ida) could be worse than Katrina," CNN meteorologist Judson Jones said.

The levees

The biggest difference between these two storms is that New Orleans and its vital levee system have been remade in the intervening years.

New Orleans sits partly below sea level south of Lake Pontchartrain and is already vulnerable to flooding. A complex system of levees, pumps, canals and floodwalls run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers protects it from regular flooding.

Katrina was so catastrophic primarily because the very high storm surge overtopped the levee system in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, leading to levee failures and breaches. Most of the breaches were due to erosion from overtopping, but a few breaches occurred before the waters even reached the top of the floodwalls, the NHC said in a post-storm analysis.

The failure of the levee system created extensive flooding and destroyed much of the city.

"Overall, about 80% of the city of New Orleans flooded, to varying depths up to about 20 ft, within a day or so after landfall of the eye," the NHC said.

Since then, the levee and pump system has been revamped to protect against another such failure.

It remains early, but as of midday Monday, the rebuilt levees have largely worked as designed. The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East said that its levees held and were not overtopped during Hurricane Ida. "There have been no issues with our pumps," the authority said. The New Orleans Flood Protection Authority also said the levee system functioned as designed.

Jefferson Parish assessor Tom Capella, who was chairman of the Jefferson Parish council in 2005 and remembers Katrina's devastation, said he had not heard of any such widespread flooding in the parish on Monday.

"As we sit here, if you're looking for the good news, the levees held," he said. "I'm looking out my window and there are shingles down, but I don't see the complete and utter devastation of 6 feet of water in people's houses like we had for Katrina."

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told MSNBC on Monday that clean-up from Hurricane Ida will take a while, but the levee "performed extremely well."

"If we had to deal with a failed levee system this morning, it would be completely unimaginable and thank goodness that is not what we are dealing with today," he said.

Ramsey Green, New Orleans deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure, emphasized the upgraded levee system on Saturday ahead of the storm.

"This is a different city than it was August 28, 2005, in terms of infrastructure and safety," he said at a news conference.

Green called the city's levee system "an unprecedentedly powerful protection for the city," which has three lines of defense: the coast, the wetlands and the levee system.

"I think from that perspective, we need to be comfortable and we need to know that we'll be in a much better place than we were 16 years ago," Green said.

"That said, if we have 10 to 20 inches of rain over an abbreviated period of time, we will see flooding. We don't know at this moment -- we see 15 to 20 inches over 48 hours or less, and we can handle it, depending on the event."

The power grid and water systems

Ida has not caused a catastrophic levee failure, but like Katrina, it still has caused severe damage to the region's power grid and water systems.

In particular, Ida had knocked out electricity for more than a million customers as of midday Monday, according to Poweroutage.US, a site that tracks outages. New Orleans City Council Member Joe Giarrusso said there are eight transmission lines into New Orleans and Jefferson Parish and all eight have been knocked out.

Entergy Louisiana, the company that provides power to 1.1 million customers in Louisiana, said it will likely take days to determine the damage and "far longer" to restore electrical transmission.

"The most dangerous part of a storm is often just after it has passed," Entergy said, because "downed power lines may still be energized."

The outages have also led to water issues, the Sewage and Water Board of New Orleans said Sunday. The board asked residents to limit water usage and said it is "experiencing challenges" keeping up with demand.

Capella, the Jefferson County assessor, said he's concerned that Ida knocked out power and has impacted the water treatment system. "It is clearly significant damage to the power grids and more importantly to the water system right now," he said Monday.

Ida also arrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding another variable to the recovery efforts.

Back in 2005, Katrina caused widespread power outages and left about three million people without electricity, including some for several weeks, according to the NHC. The storm also displaced more than a million people in the Gulf region.

The lack of power and water infamously created horrific conditions at a flooded Memorial Medical Center, where 45 bodies were eventually found. The total damage from Katrina was estimated to be $125 billion (or $176.3 billion in 2021 dollars), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In addition, cell service was down for a large swath of the region both during Katrina and in Ida.

"The communications here are similar to what it was after Katrina," Slidell Police Chief Randy Fandal said Monday. "The damages are not the same as Katrina but as far as the operations, communications, all cell phones, none of the cell phones are working, phone lines are not working, we have very limited communications ourselves."

New Orleans finds itself in the path of Hurricane Ida 16 years to the day after floodwalls collapsed and levees were overtopped by a storm surge driven by Hurricane Katrina. That flooding killed more than 1,000 people and caused billions in damage. But Ida arrives at the doorstep of a region transformed since 2005 by a giant civil works project and closer attention to flood control.

The system already has been tested by multiple storms, including 2012's Isaac, with little damage to the areas it protects. Every storm raises questions about New Orleans' defenses, though, and as Ida approaches, here are some answers:

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE KATRINA?

The federal government spent $14.5 billion on levees, pumps, seawalls, floodgates and drainage that provides enhanced protection from storm surge and flooding in New Orleans and surrounding suburbs south of Lake Pontchartrain. With the exception of three drainage projects, that work is complete.

"The post-Katrina system is so different than what was in place before," said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Matt Roe.

Starting with a giant surge barrier east of the city, the system is a 130-mile ring built to hold out storm surge of about 30 feet. The National Hurricane Center on Friday projected Ida would bring a surge of 10 feet to 15 feet on the west bank.

At that level, it could come over the levees in some areas, said emergency manager Heath Jones of the Army Corps of Engineers' New Orleans District.

"They're designed to overtop in places" with protections against worse damage, including armoring, splash pads and pumps with backup generators, he said.

"We've built all that since Katrina," and they're designed for a worse storm than the Ida is expected to be, he said.

Jones said there does not appear to be any danger of storm surge coming over the levees on the east bank, which makes up most of the city. It was the east bank levees that broke after Katrina.

Governments as of Friday were not ordering people protected by the levees to evacuate, showing their confidence in the system.

A number of floodgates are being closed as the storm approaches. That includes massive gates that ships can normally sail through, such as ones that close off the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal near the Lower 9th Ward. That has reduced the risk of flooding in an area long viewed as among the city's most exposed. At least one smaller floodgate on land has been removed for maintenance, though, with officials planning to close the gap with sandbags.

WHAT ABOUT RAINFALL FLOODING?

Inside the ring of levees, rainfall must be pumped out. The New Orleans area has an elaborate system of canals and pumps to remove water, but it can be overwhelmed by persistent heavy rainfall, like in 2017 and 2019, when two storms each dumped more than 9 inches of rain in some areas. Heavy downpours have been a constant on the soggy Gulf Coast, but some exceptional rainstorms have been observed in recent years, with experts saying such torrents are becoming more common as a warming atmosphere carries more water vapor.

Capacity in some areas has been improved since 2005 through more than $2 billion in drainage work, allowing parts of the system to remove as much as 4.7 inches (120 millimeters) of rain in three hours — what designers accounted as a rainstorm that would come only once every 10 years.

The city of New Orleans drainage system has 24 pumping stations with a combined capacity of over 50,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), which is nearly 400,000 gallons per second. That doesn't include pumps in neighboring suburbs.

But some of the pumps as well as the power system supplying them in the city are antiques plagued with reliability problems. On Friday, officials were trying to bring an electrical turbine back online to provide reserve power for the system. Three of 99 pumps were also out of commission, but New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board Executive Director Ghassan Korban said there's enough redundancy to back them up.

One of the lessons of the 2017 and 2019 storms has been that maintenance of drains, pipes and canals has been neglected. Officials urged residents Friday to sweep up around storm drains, underlining a concern that even the best pumps won't work if drains are clogged.

"Our mission is obviously to stay ahead of the storm, stay ahead of the rain and keep the city dry," Korban told reporters Friday. "But at one point, once our system is overrun, our mission shifts from keeping the city dry to just pumping the city as fast as we can."

WILL THE LEVEES HOLD UP OVER THE LONG RUN?

Experts note that the levee system was built to protect against a 100-year level of storm surge — a surge that has a 1% chance of happening any given year. With rising seas from climate change and the sinking of Louisiana's spongy coast, there's concern that simply isn't enough.

Reports issued in 2021 recommend spending a projected $1.7 billion to raise levees and floodwalls to keep providing the 100-year protection through 2078. That includes raising the height of 99 miles of levees, replacing more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of floodwall and building 3.2 miles of new floodwall.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS IN OUTLYING AREAS?

Areas outside the urban core that the levee system protects may have little or no protection against storm surge. Hurricane Isaac in 2012 flooded about 7,000 homes in LaPlace and other areas upriver from New Orleans after 8 feet of storm surge entered Lake Pontchartrain. The Corps of Engineers has started construction on a levee to protect that area, but Corps of Engineers spokesperson Rene Poche said it's not projected to be completed until 2024.

A number of local governments have ordered people to evacuate from low-lying and exposed areas outside of protective levees, including parts of New Orleans.

Suburbs north of Lake Pontchartrain are also not protected by levees or floodgates, although improvements for St. Tammany Parish are being studied. Areas close to the shore, as well as the rivers that feed into the lake and the Mississippi Sound, are vulnerable to storm surge.

Henri made landfall as a tropical storm Sunday afternoon near Westerly, Rhode Island, the National Hurricane Center reports.

According to the NHC, the storm reached southern New England Sunday afternoon around 12:15 p.m. ET, packing maximum sustained winds of 60 mph.

Portions of Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts have been experiencing tropical storm conditions throughout the morning on Sunday. According to PowerOutage.us, there were about 100,000 customers without power in Rhode Island and Connecticut as of about 12:45 p.m. ET.

The NHC projects that in the coming hours, the storm will continue to move northward into Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine before moving eastward and back out to sea.

The NHC also says that southeast New York and northern New Jersey could be in for "considerable" flash and urban flooding, as well as small stream and river flooding throughout the weekend.

On Saturday afternoon, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency in parts of the state in Henri's path and urged those in the state to take hurricane warnings seriously.

Across the East Coast, Henri will cause beaches and ocean ports to experience dangerous swells and significant rip tide currents.

At a press conference on Sunday, President Joe Biden urged New Englanders to remain vigilant and follow the guidance of local leaders. He also added that he had declared disaster declarations in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York. He also encouraged Americans to wear masks and social distance if possible amid evacuations and encouraged other Americans to seek out vaccines in advance of potential natural disasters later this year.

Henri is poised to become one of the most powerful storms to make landfall in New England in 30 years. In 1991, Hurricane Bob made landfall in the area, where the AP says it killed 17 people and caused $1.5 billion in damage.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico —

Tropical Storm Fred swept into the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, then weakened to a tropical depression after nightfall while dumping heavy rains that forecasters warned could cause dangerous flooding and mudslides there and in neighboring Haiti.

Some 300,000 customers were without power in the Dominican Republic and more than a half million were affected by swollen rivers that forced part of the aqueduct system to shut down, government officials reported.

After a quiet month of no named storms in the region, Fred became the sixth of the Atlantic hurricane season late Tuesday as it moved past the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on a forecast track that would carry it toward Florida over the weekend.

Government crews with megaphones walked through impoverished neighborhoods in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo ahead of the storm urging those in low-lying areas to evacuate. Hours later, the government reported flooding in one courthouse.

Tropical storm warnings were discontinued in the U.S. territories after pelting the islands with rain, leaving some 13,000 customers without power in Puerto Rico.

Fred was centered 25 miles (35 kilometers) south of Cap Haitien, Haiti, on Wednesday night and moving west-northwest at 15 mph (24 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph).

Forecasters said Fred was expected to become a tropical storm again Thursday as it moved near the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas and then pass north of the northern coast of central Cuba on Friday. People in Florida were urged to monitor updates.

Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi had closed government agencies on Tuesday at noon and officials noted that some gas stations had shut down after running out of fuel.

More than a month had passed since the last Atlantic storm, Hurricane Elsa, but this time of summer usually marks the start of the peak of hurricane season.

The storm was expected to produce rainfall of 3 to 5 inches (7 to 12 centimeters) over the Dominican Republic with up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) in some areas.

The second tropical storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season has formed hundreds of miles off the mid-Atlantic coast.

On Monday evening, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Bill to a tropical storm. It's currently churning out in the Atlantic Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, as of 7 a.m. ET Tuesday.

When storms over the Atlantic begin to organize into a rotating system around a central "eye," and sustained wind speeds in the storm reach 39 mph, it's classified as a tropical storm. Once wind speeds in the system reach 74 mph, it becomes a hurricane.

Tropical Storm Bill is not expected to make landfall in the U.S., according to the National Hurricane Center's projections on Monday. The agency expects Bill to take a sharp turn northwest and eventually make landfall in Newfoundland on Wednesday afternoon.

One other storm has reached tropical storm status in 2021. Ana formed as a tropical storm in the Atlantic, where it circled for several days before breaking up in late May.