The Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.

The 1881 Atlantic hurricane season featured a tropical cyclone that remains one of the deadliest in the history of the United States. Seven tropical storms are known to have developed, four of which strengthened into hurricanes, though none of those intensified into a major hurricane. However, in the absence of modern satellite and other remote-sensing technologies, only storms that affected populated land areas or encountered ships at sea were recorded, so the actual total could be higher. In 2004, meteorologist Christopher Landsea concluded that the official hurricane database (HURDAT) excludes zero to six tropical cyclones per year between 1851 and 1885 and zero to four per year between 1886 and 1910.

Savannah is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and the county seat of Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city was the capital of the colonial Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. A strategic port city in the American Revolution and during the American Civil War, Savannah today is an industrial center and an important Atlantic seaport. The city is the most populous in the Coastal Georgia region and the fifth-most populous in the state as a whole, with a population of 147,780 at the 2020 census and an estimated 148,808 in 2024. The Savannah metropolitan area, with about 432,000 residents in 2024, is the third-largest metro area in the state.