Hurricanes and Bermuda are well acquainted, but not always intimately so.

Since 1867, the island has been affected by hurricanes and tropical storms 53 times. That's once every 2.6 years that Bermuda has been hit or brushed, defined as a tropical cyclone coming within 60 miles.

The popular vacation and boating destination sustains a direct hit every 10½ years.

These stats come courtesy of www.hurricanecity.com, a nifty website that takes visitors back through time with data on major storms, their proximity, track and damage.

The site ranks 155 cities and islands throughout the U.S., Caribbean and Mexico. Grand Cayman tops the list for the most activity; Bermuda's "cycle" of 2.6 years lands it in 10th place.

Keep in mind this is not a site run by the National Weather Service or the Bermuda Weather Service – it is private site. Still, it's packed with information. There's a link to an official weather cam maintained by the Bermuda Weather Service, http://www.weather.bm/webcam.html, and at 8 a.m. local time Thursday the sky was looking mighty nice. The website operator typically has a web cam atop his own house in Bermuda but it's down – he says he needs a new weatherproof case for it.

Though still a few days out, forecasts call for the tropical force winds to fall a bit east of the island.

The bad news is that most Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes don't bother with Bermuda until significantly later in the season, usually in August and September. The good news is that even when they strike or come close, loss of life has been relatively rare.

On Sept. 5, 2003, a hit by Hurricane Fabian killed at least seven people and caused $300 million in damage. On Sept. 11, 2006, Hurricane Florence passed about 60 miles to the west.