Why are my windows spotty after a storm?

Start with the wind, because it arrives first. NOAA's Chemical Sciences Laboratory describes what happens where the water meets it: "When waves break on the open ocean, they throw particles called sea spray aerosols into the atmosphere." Those particles, it says, are made up primarily of salt, and sea spray aerosol is "the most abundant natural aerosol in Earth's atmosphere".

At the shoreline the same thing happens closer to home. UF/IFAS Extension, writing about salt-pruned dune plants on the Gulf coast, puts it in two sentences: "Specifically, wind-borne salt spray. As waves crash on the shore, salt particles in the air and beach blow inland." That is what salt spray means.

Neither source puts a distance on how far inland the salt travels or a rate on how much settles. They describe the mechanism, not the amount, and this answer keeps to that.

The rain that follows is not pure water either. The U.S. Geological Survey explains how a raindrop gets started: "For precipitation to happen, first tiny water droplets must condense on even tinier dust, salt, or smoke particles, which act as a nucleus, binding them together."

So each drop that strikes a window already holds a particle at its center, and on the coast salt is one of the particles on offer. What ordinary rain does to glass that was clean is its own question, taken up at whether rain makes clean windows dirty. A storm adds wind to that rain, which drives it at the glass instead of letting it fall past.

The spots appear at the last stage, when the water leaves. Rain that runs down a pane and dries leaves behind what it carried and what it picked up on the way, including the salt that settled before the rain began. That is the step the glass industry writes its rules around. The National Glass Association's quick-reference guide says: "DO NOT allow water or cleaning residue to remain on the glass or adjacent materials".

Where a drop stops and dries, what it held stays in that one place, and the word for that kind of mark is spotting. No source read measures how much any storm leaves on a pane, and none is offered here.

The Atlantic hurricane season has fixed dates. The National Hurricane Center puts it at June 1 to November 30, with a peak on September 10 and most activity between mid-August and mid-October.

Those are calendar dates, not a forecast for any year. What the hurricane season means as a term has its own entry, and how it sits alongside Naples' rain and heat is set out in the storm calendar for Naples. Nothing read for this answer says what the peak does to a window.

Debris a storm leaves on exterior surfaces is a separate question, and whether exterior cleaning removes storm debris stains is answered on its own page. For the spots themselves, NGA's guidance is general and does not mention storms: "DO NOT allow dirt and residue to remain on glass for an extended period of time".

Glass that was covered by a shutter or panel through a storm is a different case, because the covering changes what reaches the pane. That case is taken up at cleaning windows before hurricane shutters go up.

The window makers give owners one routine item of their own that concerns water. The PGT, CGI and WinDoor care instructions ask owners to "Routinely inspect and clean your water drainage (weep systems) to maintain proper drainage."

Spots are a deposit, and a deposit is what exterior window cleaning is about. A crack, a chip, a frame knocked out of line or an impact window that took a hit is something else. Whether a storm did anything to a window or its frame beyond leaving marks on the glass is a question for a window contractor, and for the insurer that covers the house.

A cleaning does not answer that question and is not a way of looking for the answer. Wind carries salt, rain forms on particles, and water leaves what it carried when it dries: that is the whole of what this answer can say about a pane after a storm, and the rest belongs to the trades that inspect and repair windows.