The 1938 Atlantic hurricane season featured four hurricanes, including the "Great New England Hurricane", regarded as one of the most powerful and destructive tropical cyclones in New England history. In the Atlantic Ocean, the season officially began on June 16 and ended on November 15. It produced fifteen tropical depressions and nine tropical storms, of which four further intensified into hurricanes. Two of those four became major hurricanes, the equivalent of a Category 3 or greater storm on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson scale. In 2012, as part of the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project, meteorologists identified a previously undocumented January hurricane and September tropical storm while fine-tuning the meteorological histories of several others. However, given scant observations from ships and weather stations, significant uncertainty of tropical cyclone tracks, intensity, and duration remains, particularly for those storms that stayed at sea. Seasonal activity began with the formation of a tropical or subtropical cyclone over the northeastern Atlantic on January 3, the earliest occurrence in a calendar year on record. It later became one of only two hurricanes on record to form in the month of January. In mid-August, a hurricane struck near Cameron, Louisiana, producing strong winds and water level rises that caused $245,550 in damage throughout that state and Texas. It was followed in quick succession by an even more potent hurricane that tracked through the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and into northern Mexico. There, 9 people were killed and over 400 families were left homeless. An additional 4 deaths occurred in Texas. In September, a long-tracked and powerful hurricane swept into New England, where 494–700 people were killed, over 1,700 individuals were injured, and about 23,900 structures were damaged or destroyed. The cost was estimated at $620 million. A minimal tropical storm affected Texas and Louisiana in mid-October, and a stronger tropical storm caused minor damage along the eastern coastline of Florida in early November. The season's activity was reflected with an accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) rating of 78 units, below the 1931–1943 average of 91.2. ACE is a metric used to express the energy used by a tropical cyclone during its lifetime. Therefore, a storm with a longer duration will have high values of ACE. It is only calculated at six-hour increments in which specific tropical and subtropical systems are either at or above sustained wind speeds of , which is the threshold for tropical storm intensity. Thus, tropical depressions