The U.S. has gone seven consecutive years without a landfalling major hurricane, the longest stretch since the 1860s, a meteorologist with Aon Benfield’s catastrophe modeler says. “The United States is certainly in a quiet period, with Hurricane Wilma in 2005 being the last major hurricane to make landfall in the United States,” Steve Bowen, senior scientist at Impact Forecasting, said during a webinar today. In fact, Bowen said 2012 marks the fourth consecutive year of below-average tropical-cyclone landfall on a global basis.