Typical alarmist hyperbole.
First of all, the weather channel isn't an authority on weather phenomena. They are part of an entertainment network (NBC/Universal) and are enamored with themselves and their self-importance. The original founder of the weather channel, John Coleman, left them in disgust with the loss of scientific objectivity in lieu of political messaging. His specific grievance is them linking nearly every observation and anomaly to global climate change.
Secondly, for centuries the oceans have been uncharted and events unrecorded. Any serious recordkeeping worldwide is a mere 250 years old, and much of that is anecdotal. If the earth is billions of years old and their observation period is a mere 33 years old, then the classification of any observation by the weather channel as a "first" is sheer arrogance based on their high opinion of themselves.
Third and last, the predictions of hurricanes has been very poorly executed particularly in the past few seasons. NOAA and the weather channel have missed badly on their predictions of 1) Number of hurricane strength storms per year, 2) Predicted intensity of storms and 3) Predicted landfall in the US of major damaging storms.
Based on this stellar record alone, they should do more to truly understand on the nature of hurricanes and spend much less time prostituting themselves by proclaiming every event as a "first" or "worst ever" scenario.
The whole reason for starting to track hurricanes and typhoons was because the Navy lost several ships to them during WWII.