[accessory transects] - Summed coral cover along the four accessory transects in St. John from 1989 to 2017 (RUI-LTREB Renewal: Three decades of coral reef community dynamics in St. John, USVI: 2014-2019)

Major tropical storms are destructive phenomena with large effects on the community dynamics of multiple biomes. On coral reefs, their impacts have been described for decades, leading to the expectation that future storms should have effects similar to those recorded in the past.

This expectation relies on the assumption that storm intensities will remain unchanged, and the impacted coral reef communities are similar to those of the recent past; neither assumption is correct. These data support a study quantifying the effects of two category five hurricanes on the reefs of St. John, US Virgin Islands, where 31 y of time-series analyses reveal chronic coral mortality, increasing macroalgal abundance, and five major hurricanes that caused acute coral mortality.