The 1896 Atlantic hurricane season was fairly inactive but produced one of the costliest hurricanes ever to strike the United States until that point, along with several other destructive tropical cyclones. The season began in early July with a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and ended in late November with a slow-moving tropical storm over the Lesser Antilles. Of the season's seven documented systems, six are believed to have become hurricanes, and two intensified into major hurricanes—the equivalence of Category 3 or greater on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson scale. All but one of the systems directly affected land to some degree; Hurricane "Six" remained over open water and only posed a threat to shipping lanes. In addition, a possible storm was identified off the coast of North Carolina