Hurricane Bertha (1990) rapidly strengthened. Bertha became a hurricane early on July 29, though it weakened back to a tropical storm later that day. On the following day, Bertha re-intensified into a hurricane and peaked as an 80 mph (130 km/h) Category 1 hurricane on July 31. Early on August 2, Bertha made landfall near Sydney, Nova Scotia while weakening and transitioning back into an extratropical cyclone. Large waves impacted the East Coast of the United States; waves were reported along the coast of North Carolina. In Florida, rough seas caused two fatalities by drowning, as well as at least 200 lifeguard rescues.
What Were You Hoping For? the album with a 20-date national headlining tour, his first national tour since 2008. It began on September 19 at Webster Hall in New York City and concluded on October 13 at Yoshi's in San Francisco. He performed with members of his session band, drummer Ruth Price and keyboardist Peter Dyer, as well as guitarist Douglas Showalter. Prior to the tour, they had played at the 21st NAACP Theatre Awards gala on August 29. "What You Were Hoping For?" was met with rave reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream