Good question! There is a technique being developed that might get us back a few hundred thousand years; perhaps a few million years. It makes use of the fact that hurricane rainfall is unusually depleted of a particular isotope of Oxygen (18O). This rain water is, in some places, incorporated into limestone formations such as stalactites in caves. By sectioning such a rock and detecting its 18O content, we might be able to find records of ancient hurricane activity.