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Wilma is now a memory. She was the last major hurricane to strike the United States — and the last hurricane of any kind to hit Florida.

That eight-year span is Florida's longest hurricane-free streak in recorded weather history.

Several tropical storms have damaged Florida since 2005, including Debby, which unleashed record rainfall and flooding in North Florida in June 2012. But there have been no hurricanes.

Experts attribute 2013's weak hurricane season, which officially ended on Saturday, to a variety of atmospheric conditions.

Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and National Hurricane Center spokesman, said there was widespread sinking air throughout a large area of the Atlantic Ocean. And in many cases, dry air was pulled inside developing storms to reduce the threat.

That was accompanied by an "above-normal wind shear over the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico — conditions that acted to offset otherwise more conducive climate patterns," Feltgen wrote in an email.

Another bizarre reason for the slow season: Sand kicked up from the Sahara Desert during an extreme monsoon season infiltrated severe thunderstorms leaving Africa's west coast, where many hurricanes are born. Such sand influences can keep storms from developing into major hurricanes.

And finally, there was above-normal wind shear in the Atlantic. That sheared off cloud tops, keeping them from growing stronger.

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