Looking Back at Later-Season Hurricanes…

The latter half of the 2005 Hurricane Season continued to set records. On October 15, a tropical depression developed over the western Caribbean Sea. While the depression was slow to strengthen, it eventually acquired tropical storm status 2 days later, and was named Wilma. It gradually intensified and was classified a hurricane on the morning of October 18. A mere 20 hours later, hurricane hunters measured a central pressure of 882mb, which was the lowest pressure ever recorded in a hurricane in the Atlantic basin. Accordingly, the maximum sustained winds were estimated to be 175mph, making Wilma a dangerous category 5 hurricane as well as the strongest hurricane ever.

Hurricanes in November do not happen very often. One particular hurricane in November occurred in 1985 in Hurricane Kate. This hurricane began as a tropical depression near the U.S. Virgin Islands on the south side of a strong ridge of high pressure over the western Atlantic. Kate continued west-northwestward, passing to the north of Puerto Rico and south of the Bahamas. Kate became a rare major hurricane as it passed through the Florida Straits into the east-central Gulf of Mexico. Kate gradually turned northward and eventually northeastward across the east-central Gulf, and made landfall as a category two hurricane in the central Florida Panhandle. Kate dropped heavy rains across the panhandle, with Panama City receiving 8.32″ of rain. Usually, the heaviest rains are found on the north and eastern side of a cyclone; however, because of an approaching frontal boundary to the northwest, the heaviest rains occurred on the northwest and west side of Kate. The hurricane eventually weakened as it accelerated northeastward across southern Georgia and eventually re-emerged in the western Atlantic as a remnant low.

Isaac Williams
WVUA-Weather