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Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms: 1871-2001, Expanded Edition
By John M. Williams and Iver W. Duedall
The most comprehensive chronological guide to hurricanes, tropical storms, and near-misses to impact Florida, this newly expanded volume contains the widest possible range of statistics and information on the tropical cyclones that hit Florida from 1871 through 2001.
Read a complete excerpt from chapter four, "Allison to Roxanne, 1995," and peruse the Table of Contents.

Chapter Four - PDF HTML | Table of Contents - PDF HTML | Purchase Now

4
Allison to Roxanne, 1995
The 1995 hurricane season was not a record one, but it was a close second to the 1933 season, which had 21 storms. There were 19 named storms in 1995 (the average is nine), 11 of which became hurricanes (the average is six). All but two of the 19 storms in 1995 grew from tropical waves originating off the West African coast. The season cost the areas affected more than $9 billion in damage, and an estimated 128 lives were lost in the Atlantic Basin.
Of the 11 hurricanes, Felix, Luis, and Opal were Category 4 storms; Marilyn and Roxanne were Category 3; and there were two Category 2 and four Category 1 storms. Erin and Opal struck the Florida coast as hurricanes, and Allison and Jerry were tropical storms at Florida landfall. Florida had not been hit with four tropical storms in a single season since 1953, and the overall season has not been so busy since 1969.
Between them, Hurricane Erin and Tropical Storm Jerry inundated east-central Florida with more than 30 inches of rain. Opal went into the record books as the second most expensive storm in the state (Andrew holds that record). It caused major erosion along 57 miles of Panhandle beaches, where the costs of repair were estimated over $100 million. This exceeds erosion damage done by Andrew, Eloise, and other major storms in Florida. The Opal storm surge was estimated to be 12 to 15 feet in some areas, and beach dunes as high as 21 feet were flattened.
Allison, June 3-6
A disturbance was noted in the northwest Caribbean on the first of June. By the third, this system was a tropical depression 160 miles south of the western tip of Cuba, moving north-northwest at 10 mph. At 11:00 a.m. the storm was named Allison (fig. 15.A, tracking plate 13), the first named storm of the 1995 season. Winds were 40-45 mph, pressure was 29.59 inches, and the storm was moving north-northwest at 14 mph, heading for Cozumel and Yucatan in Mexico.
At 2:00 p.m., however, Allison was 70 miles east-southeast of Cancun on a northerly track at 15 mph. Early on June 4, the storm had cleared the Yucatan Channel, winds were up to 60 mph, and pressure had fallen to 29.41 inches. By noon Allison was a hurricane, 300 miles south of Apalachicola and moving north at 16 mph. This was the storm's peak, with 75 mph winds and pressure of 29.15 inches.
At 6:00 a.m. on June 5, Allison was 40 miles southwest of Apalachicola pushing high tides, spawning tornadoes, and dropping over 5 inches of rain. Landfall was near St. George Island, Florida, as a minimal hurricane or strong tropical storm. The system was large at this point, and actual landfall was between St. George Island and St. Marks (color plate 3). Heavy rains throughout the area caused flooding, and gusts up to 54 mph were felt as far north as North Carolina's Outer Banks. The remnants ended up in Massachusetts. Allison caused one death and $1.7 million in damage (fig. 15.B). It was the earliest storm to strike the Florida Panhandle in the twentieth century.
Tropical Storms Barry, Chantal, and Dean in July remained in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico and did not affect Florida.
Erin, July 31-August 6
Erin formed from Tropical Depression 5 in the southeast Bahamas (fig. 16.A, tracking plate 13). The system had been tracked from east of the Leeward Islands. The storm moved west-northwest at 10 mph and was about 340 miles east-southeast of Miami when it became Hurricane Erin, with winds of 75 mph and pressure of 29.21 inches.
At 6:00 a.m. on August 1, hurricane warnings were issued along Florida's southeast and central coast. By 1:00 in the morning on August 2, Erin was making landfall north of Vero Beach between Sebastian and Palm Bay, similar to Hurricane David's landfall in 1979. At that time pressure was 29.09 inches, and winds of more than 85 mph were occurring (color plate 4, fig. 16.B-C). John Williams describes the eye passing over his house in Palm Bay: The eye passage started at 0245, at which time the barometric pressure bottomed out at 29.00 inches [fig. 16.C]. Before that, it was the usual squally, hard rain-light rain routine of an approaching storm.
Winds gusted to more than 65 mph at times and I watched sustained winds over 50 mph for as long as 20 minutes at a time. All this from the north. I was worried about my garage door (two-car garage), as this can be the weakest part of one's house-but I had parked my pickup truck close to and across the door. It shook and rattled but held up OK. During the eye, the sky was relatively clear with occasional light breezes. Once for about five minutes, nothing stirred!
At 0330, the winds picked up rapidly from about 110 degrees and now there were several severe thunderstorms added to the other activities.
My peak gust of 75 mph from 140 degrees came at 0404 and the worst part of the storm was definitely the back side. I measured more than 8.3 inches of rain during the passage, and more than 10 inches fell before the system was out of here.
There was minimal damage, lots of debris; the power sputtered several times but never went off and I finally lost cable TV about 0530 after recording the whole storm. By 0700 Erin was dumping heavy rain on Disney World and still doing it locally. I had no flooding problems, but a few blocks away there were major flood problems plus the power was off there.
Iver Duedall, living in Melbourne Village a few miles north of Palm Bay, was in a position to give an eyewitness account of Erin's devastation: My wife, Mary, and I went to bed early on the evening of the August 1. We were awakened at about midnight by the sounds of thunder and lightning and strong gusts of wind hitting the palms and pines. With outside floodlights on, we experienced our very first Florida hurricane inside the comfort of our house; the power went out at about 4:00 a.m., so we finished out the storm by candlelight.
The severity of the storm seemed to lessen by around 0430. The eye of the storm passed south of us, near John Williams's house in Palm Bay, so we really never experienced the "before and after the eye of a hurricane." Oh well, next time. When it came light around 0600, we walked outside: tree limbs and debris were everywhere, it was nature's way of creating a first-class mess. The storm allowed many of our tall trees to calve their limbs and large branches naturally; fortunately none fell on the roof. Surprisingly, there was not too much standing water-we didn't know it then but the real devastation of Erin was yet to come, in a few more hours-huge amounts of rain!
That morning at about 0700 Mary was to have left for Orlando International Airport to visit my Aunt Violet in Albany, Oregon. When we called the airline the day before to learn whether the flight was on or off because of the oncoming hurricane, the agent told us that the rescheduled flight might leave early in the afternoon of the second; we were surprised that the airport would reopen so soon. While we were preparing to leave for the airport, Erin's rain had started, but giving little hint to what was in store for Melbourne Village and area in the next few hours.
The trip to Orlando was uneventful. The airport was operating, with little evidence that it had been struck by a tropical storm a few hours earlier. Halfway back to Melbourne the rain began to increase. However, I took little notice. But on I-95 a few miles before the intersection with Highway 192 near West Melbourne, the downpour started. The rain was so heavy (the worst I have ever been in) that traffic came to a near halt; I could not see anything out of my windshield even with wipers moving full blast. I drove slowly with my head out the driver's window. It took an hour to move a distance that normally takes a few minutes.
As I approached the intersection with Highway 192 on I-95, the disaster of Erin's rain became evident. Except for a small portion of its inside lane, Highway 192 and shoulder were flooded as far as you could see. I knew if I stopped I would never get started again; I also figured that the road would be closed very soon. Cars and pickups were stranded randomly on the shoulder. But I proceeded onto Highway 192 anyway, traveling that small open area of the inside lane. I made it all the way to the entrance to Melbourne Village. As I drove into the Village, its streets were likewise flooded. Water was everywhere but I just kept moving, keeping a light pedal on my brakes, trying to keep them as dry as possible (you can't stop a car with wet brakes). Fortunately I made it to my driveway, which was under a foot or so of water. In fact a "lake" surrounded our house (and many other houses in the Village); the log poles that normally border our driveway were floating all around the driveway. Later that afternoon Scott Taylor, my neighbor, took his family on a canoe ride, paddling up and down Village roads.
Several Village homes were flooded. Several days later after things begin to dry out, some residents put their ruined rugs and destroyed furniture and belongings on the curb for pickup by the garbage truck. The greatest damage occurred at the Village entrance, where the Target department store stands.
So much rain fell in such a short time that Target's roof caved in. The store was closed for several weeks for repair and restocking. Three days passed before the "lake" disappeared around our house. Melbourne Village residents were without power about five days.
By 6:00 p.m. Erin was 90 miles southeast of Apalachicola, moving west at 17 mph. At 6:00 a.m. on August 3, Erin was a hurricane again, 75 miles southeast of Pensacola. Winds were 80 mph and pressure was 28.79 inches. Erin peaked in this area, with 90 mph winds and lowest pressure of 28.74 inches, having become a strong Category 1 storm.
The second landfall was near Pensacola, but 90 mph winds were felt as far north as Jackson, Mississippi (fig. 16.D). On August 4, Erin was 30 miles northeast of Jackson, moving northwest at 10 mph. The storm still had 30 mph winds, and the last advisory was issued.
Caught by the storm during passage from the Bahamas to Florida, the 234-foot gambling-cruise ship Club Royale sank 90 miles east of Cape Canaveral, with loss of three crewmen. Six more people died in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Erin managed to dump heavy rains as far north as Illinois. The system finally died out in West Virginia after raining on Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana.
More than 150,000 people were without electricity in east-central Florida for up to 10 days. Up to 12 inches of rain fell before any relief was felt. Damage was more than $700 million (fig. 16.E).
There was a reprieve of sorts as Tropical Depression 6 formed in the Bay of Campeche but did not develop further. Category 4 Felix, Tropical Storm Gabrielle, and Hurricanes Humberto and Iris, both Category 2, kept things interesting in August and September but did not leave the Atlantic. Tropical Depression 11 was brewing in the Florida Straits just north of the Cuban coast on August 22.
On August 23 at about 6:00 p.m., Jerry was named and was about to make landfall close to where Erin had struck (color plate 5). The system, a very wet tropical storm, took a track through Florida similar to Erin's (fig. 17). Top winds were 53 mph at Lake Worth and pressure was 29.59 inches. By 6:00 p.m. on August 24 Jerry was just off Florida's west coast near Cedar Key. Erratic movement during the night brought the storm inland again near Cross City as a depression. By noon on the twenty-fifth Jerry was on the Florida-Georgia border, moving north-northwest at 8 mph.
For the next five days the system wandered around the southeastern United States, finally tracking back across Florida as a disturbance, moving southwest. By the first of September it was gone in the Gulf of Mexico southwest of Cape Romano. More than 15 inches of rain fell in Florida, which was still saturated with water from Erin. Jerry caused six deaths and damage amounting to $21 million.
In the meantime, Tropical Storm Karen, Category 4 Luis, and Category 3 Marilyn were tearing up the West Indies, and Category 1 Noel never quite made it into the Caribbean. This brought to an end a very active July and August, and only two storms, Luis and Marilyn, inhabited the usually active September.
Opal, September 27-October 5
Tropical Depression 14 fizzled out in the mid-Atlantic, but on September 27, Tropical Depression 17 was discovered about 75 miles south-southwest of Cozumel in the northwest Caribbean. (Allison had started in the same general area.) By noon on September 28 the system was inland in Yucatan, and it drifted across the area until the thirtieth (fig. 18.A).
By noon on September 30 the system was over water and had intensified enough to be named-Opal, the first letter O storm since hurricane naming began in 1953. For the next day it drifted in a westerly direction in the warm waters of the Bay of Campeche. About 575 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River, Opal was stationary and became a hurricane, with 80 mph winds and pressure of 28.67 inches (color plate 6).
Early on October 3 the storm was moving north at 8 mph with barometric pressure dropping. Hurricane force winds were recorded 30 miles out and tropical storm winds to 275 miles in all directions. In less than 24 hours, Opal went from a Category 1 storm to Category 4, and early on the fourth the air reconnaissance flight clocked 148 mph sustained winds, with gusts to 185 mph. Pressure was Category 5 at 27.05 inches. This was the peak of Opal, which was now some 180 miles south of the Mississippi's mouth.
Opal had followed a path of water of 86°F and warmer through the Gulf of Mexico, which was the fuel needed to spawn a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But an area of cooler water blocked its track to the Florida coast late on October 4. Opal made landfall between Destin and Panama City as a Category 3 storm (color plate 7). Sustained winds were 125 mph with gusts to 144; the storm surge was as high as 15 feet in places. This surge was evident along the coast from southeast Alabama down to Cedar Key, Florida. There was significant damage as far north as Atlanta, and the system finally died around the Great Lakes. Fifty-nine deaths had resulted: 9 in the United States, 31 in Guatemala, and 19 in Mexico. Damages exceeded $3 billion (fig. 18.B-E).
The season was not over by any means. Tropical Storms Pablo and Sebastien flared up in the Atlantic, and Roxanne, a Category 3 hurricane, threatened to follow Opal in the Gulf. There were anxious moments for Florida's Opal victims as Roxanne danced in the Bay of Campeche less than a week after Opal's impact. Tanya finally ended the season as an October-November Category 1 storm in the Atlantic. At one time near the end of August, Humberto, Iris, Karen, Jerry, and Luis were all going at once in the Atlantic (fig. 19)-just another Atlantic record set during the 1995 hurricane season.
© 2002 University Press of Florida. All Rights Reserved.
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Reading Room: Sample
Florida Hurricanes and Tropical Storms: 1871-2001, Expanded Edition By John M. Williams and Iver W. Duedall The most comprehensive chronological guide to hurricanes, tropical storms, and near-misses to impact Florida, this newly expanded volume contains the widest possible range of statistics and information on the tropical cyclones that hit Florida from 1871 through 2001. Read a complete excerpt from chapter four, "Allison to Roxanne, 1995," and peruse the Table of Contents.
Chapter Four - PDF HTML \| Table of Contents - PDF HTML \| Purchase Now
4 Allison to Roxanne, 1995 The 1995 hurricane season was not a record one, but it was a close second to the 1933 season, which had 21 storms. There were 19 named storms in 1995 (the average is nine), 11 of which became hurricanes (the average is six). All but two of the 19 storms in 1995 grew from tropical waves originating off the West African coast. The season cost the areas affected more than $9 billion in damage, and an estimated 128 lives were lost in the Atlantic Basin. Of the 11 hurricanes, Felix, Luis, and Opal were Category 4 storms; Marilyn and Roxanne were Category 3; and there were two Category 2 and four Category 1 storms. Erin and Opal struck the Florida coast as hurricanes, and Allison and Jerry were tropical storms at Florida landfall. Florida had not been hit with four tropical storms in a single season since 1953, and the overall season has not been so busy since 1969. Between them, Hurricane Erin and Tropical Storm Jerry inundated east-central Florida with more than 30 inches of rain. Opal went into the record books as the second most expensive storm in the state (Andrew holds that record). It caused major erosion along 57 miles of Panhandle beaches, where the costs of repair were estimated over $100 million. This exceeds erosion damage done by Andrew, Eloise, and other major storms in Florida. The Opal storm surge was estimated to be 12 to 15 feet in some areas, and beach dunes as high as 21 feet were flattened. Allison, June 3-6 A disturbance was noted in the northwest Caribbean on the first of June. By the third, this system was a tropical depression 160 miles south of the western tip of Cuba, moving north-northwest at 10 mph. At 11:00 a.m. the storm was named Allison (fig. 15.A, tracking plate 13), the first named storm of the 1995 season. Winds were 40-45 mph, pressure was 29.59 inches, and the storm was moving north-northwest at 14 mph, heading for Cozumel and Yucatan in Mexico. At 2:00 p.m., however, Allison was 70 miles east-southeast of Cancun on a northerly track at 15 mph. Early on June 4, the storm had cleared the Yucatan Channel, winds were up to 60 mph, and pressure had fallen to 29.41 inches. By noon Allison was a hurricane, 300 miles south of Apalachicola and moving north at 16 mph. This was the storm's peak, with 75 mph winds and pressure of 29.15 inches. At 6:00 a.m. on June 5, Allison was 40 miles southwest of Apalachicola pushing high tides, spawning tornadoes, and dropping over 5 inches of rain. Landfall was near St. George Island, Florida, as a minimal hurricane or strong tropical storm. The system was large at this point, and actual landfall was between St. George Island and St. Marks (color plate 3). Heavy rains throughout the area caused flooding, and gusts up to 54 mph were felt as far north as North Carolina's Outer Banks. The remnants ended up in Massachusetts. Allison caused one death and $1.7 million in damage (fig. 15.B). It was the earliest storm to strike the Florida Panhandle in the twentieth century. Tropical Storms Barry, Chantal, and Dean in July remained in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico and did not affect Florida. Erin, July 31-August 6 Erin formed from Tropical Depression 5 in the southeast Bahamas (fig. 16.A, tracking plate 13). The system had been tracked from east of the Leeward Islands. The storm moved west-northwest at 10 mph and was about 340 miles east-southeast of Miami when it became Hurricane Erin, with winds of 75 mph and pressure of 29.21 inches. At 6:00 a.m. on August 1, hurricane warnings were issued along Florida's southeast and central coast. By 1:00 in the morning on August 2, Erin was making landfall north of Vero Beach between Sebastian and Palm Bay, similar to Hurricane David's landfall in 1979. At that time pressure was 29.09 inches, and winds of more than 85 mph were occurring (color plate 4, fig. 16.B-C). John Williams describes the eye passing over his house in Palm Bay: The eye passage started at 0245, at which time the barometric pressure bottomed out at 29.00 inches [fig. 16.C]. Before that, it was the usual squally, hard rain-light rain routine of an approaching storm. Winds gusted to more than 65 mph at times and I watched sustained winds over 50 mph for as long as 20 minutes at a time. All this from the north. I was worried about my garage door (two-car garage), as this can be the weakest part of one's house-but I had parked my pickup truck close to and across the door. It shook and rattled but held up OK. During the eye, the sky was relatively clear with occasional light breezes. Once for about five minutes, nothing stirred! At 0330, the winds picked up rapidly from about 110 degrees and now there were several severe thunderstorms added to the other activities. My peak gust of 75 mph from 140 degrees came at 0404 and the worst part of the storm was definitely the back side. I measured more than 8.3 inches of rain during the passage, and more than 10 inches fell before the system was out of here. There was minimal damage, lots of debris; the power sputtered several times but never went off and I finally lost cable TV about 0530 after recording the whole storm. By 0700 Erin was dumping heavy rain on Disney World and still doing it locally. I had no flooding problems, but a few blocks away there were major flood problems plus the power was off there. Iver Duedall, living in Melbourne Village a few miles north of Palm Bay, was in a position to give an eyewitness account of Erin's devastation: My wife, Mary, and I went to bed early on the evening of the August 1. We were awakened at about midnight by the sounds of thunder and lightning and strong gusts of wind hitting the palms and pines. With outside floodlights on, we experienced our very first Florida hurricane inside the comfort of our house; the power went out at about 4:00 a.m., so we finished out the storm by candlelight. The severity of the storm seemed to lessen by around 0430. The eye of the storm passed south of us, near John Williams's house in Palm Bay, so we really never experienced the "before and after the eye of a hurricane." Oh well, next time. When it came light around 0600, we walked outside: tree limbs and debris were everywhere, it was nature's way of creating a first-class mess. The storm allowed many of our tall trees to calve their limbs and large branches naturally; fortunately none fell on the roof. Surprisingly, there was not too much standing water-we didn't know it then but the real devastation of Erin was yet to come, in a few more hours-huge amounts of rain! That morning at about 0700 Mary was to have left for Orlando International Airport to visit my Aunt Violet in Albany, Oregon. When we called the airline the day before to learn whether the flight was on or off because of the oncoming hurricane, the agent told us that the rescheduled flight might leave early in the afternoon of the second; we were surprised that the airport would reopen so soon. While we were preparing to leave for the airport, Erin's rain had started, but giving little hint to what was in store for Melbourne Village and area in the next few hours. The trip to Orlando was uneventful. The airport was operating, with little evidence that it had been struck by a tropical storm a few hours earlier. Halfway back to Melbourne the rain began to increase. However, I took little notice. But on I-95 a few miles before the intersection with Highway 192 near West Melbourne, the downpour started. The rain was so heavy (the worst I have ever been in) that traffic came to a near halt; I could not see anything out of my windshield even with wipers moving full blast. I drove slowly with my head out the driver's window. It took an hour to move a distance that normally takes a few minutes. As I approached the intersection with Highway 192 on I-95, the disaster of Erin's rain became evident. Except for a small portion of its inside lane, Highway 192 and shoulder were flooded as far as you could see. I knew if I stopped I would never get started again; I also figured that the road would be closed very soon. Cars and pickups were stranded randomly on the shoulder. But I proceeded onto Highway 192 anyway, traveling that small open area of the inside lane. I made it all the way to the entrance to Melbourne Village. As I drove into the Village, its streets were likewise flooded. Water was everywhere but I just kept moving, keeping a light pedal on my brakes, trying to keep them as dry as possible (you can't stop a car with wet brakes). Fortunately I made it to my driveway, which was under a foot or so of water. In fact a "lake" surrounded our house (and many other houses in the Village); the log poles that normally border our driveway were floating all around the driveway. Later that afternoon Scott Taylor, my neighbor, took his family on a canoe ride, paddling up and down Village roads. Several Village homes were flooded. Several days later after things begin to dry out, some residents put their ruined rugs and destroyed furniture and belongings on the curb for pickup by the garbage truck. The greatest damage occurred at the Village entrance, where the Target department store stands. So much rain fell in such a short time that Target's roof caved in. The store was closed for several weeks for repair and restocking. Three days passed before the "lake" disappeared around our house. Melbourne Village residents were without power about five days. By 6:00 p.m. Erin was 90 miles southeast of Apalachicola, moving west at 17 mph. At 6:00 a.m. on August 3, Erin was a hurricane again, 75 miles southeast of Pensacola. Winds were 80 mph and pressure was 28.79 inches. Erin peaked in this area, with 90 mph winds and lowest pressure of 28.74 inches, having become a strong Category 1 storm. The second landfall was near Pensacola, but 90 mph winds were felt as far north as Jackson, Mississippi (fig. 16.D). On August 4, Erin was 30 miles northeast of Jackson, moving northwest at 10 mph. The storm still had 30 mph winds, and the last advisory was issued. Caught by the storm during passage from the Bahamas to Florida, the 234-foot gambling-cruise ship Club Royale sank 90 miles east of Cape Canaveral, with loss of three crewmen. Six more people died in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Erin managed to dump heavy rains as far north as Illinois. The system finally died out in West Virginia after raining on Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. More than 150,000 people were without electricity in east-central Florida for up to 10 days. Up to 12 inches of rain fell before any relief was felt. Damage was more than $700 million (fig. 16.E). There was a reprieve of sorts as Tropical Depression 6 formed in the Bay of Campeche but did not develop further. Category 4 Felix, Tropical Storm Gabrielle, and Hurricanes Humberto and Iris, both Category 2, kept things interesting in August and September but did not leave the Atlantic. Tropical Depression 11 was brewing in the Florida Straits just north of the Cuban coast on August 22. On August 23 at about 6:00 p.m., Jerry was named and was about to make landfall close to where Erin had struck (color plate 5). The system, a very wet tropical storm, took a track through Florida similar to Erin's (fig. 17). Top winds were 53 mph at Lake Worth and pressure was 29.59 inches. By 6:00 p.m. on August 24 Jerry was just off Florida's west coast near Cedar Key. Erratic movement during the night brought the storm inland again near Cross City as a depression. By noon on the twenty-fifth Jerry was on the Florida-Georgia border, moving north-northwest at 8 mph. For the next five days the system wandered around the southeastern United States, finally tracking back across Florida as a disturbance, moving southwest. By the first of September it was gone in the Gulf of Mexico southwest of Cape Romano. More than 15 inches of rain fell in Florida, which was still saturated with water from Erin. Jerry caused six deaths and damage amounting to $21 million. In the meantime, Tropical Storm Karen, Category 4 Luis, and Category 3 Marilyn were tearing up the West Indies, and Category 1 Noel never quite made it into the Caribbean. This brought to an end a very active July and August, and only two storms, Luis and Marilyn, inhabited the usually active September. Opal, September 27-October 5 Tropical Depression 14 fizzled out in the mid-Atlantic, but on September 27, Tropical Depression 17 was discovered about 75 miles south-southwest of Cozumel in the northwest Caribbean. (Allison had started in the same general area.) By noon on September 28 the system was inland in Yucatan, and it drifted across the area until the thirtieth (fig. 18.A). By noon on September 30 the system was over water and had intensified enough to be named-Opal, the first letter O storm since hurricane naming began in 1953. For the next day it drifted in a westerly direction in the warm waters of the Bay of Campeche. About 575 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River, Opal was stationary and became a hurricane, with 80 mph winds and pressure of 28.67 inches (color plate 6). Early on October 3 the storm was moving north at 8 mph with barometric pressure dropping. Hurricane force winds were recorded 30 miles out and tropical storm winds to 275 miles in all directions. In less than 24 hours, Opal went from a Category 1 storm to Category 4, and early on the fourth the air reconnaissance flight clocked 148 mph sustained winds, with gusts to 185 mph. Pressure was Category 5 at 27.05 inches. This was the peak of Opal, which was now some 180 miles south of the Mississippi's mouth. Opal had followed a path of water of 86°F and warmer through the Gulf of Mexico, which was the fuel needed to spawn a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But an area of cooler water blocked its track to the Florida coast late on October 4. Opal made landfall between Destin and Panama City as a Category 3 storm (color plate 7). Sustained winds were 125 mph with gusts to 144; the storm surge was as high as 15 feet in places. This surge was evident along the coast from southeast Alabama down to Cedar Key, Florida. There was significant damage as far north as Atlanta, and the system finally died around the Great Lakes. Fifty-nine deaths had resulted: 9 in the United States, 31 in Guatemala, and 19 in Mexico. Damages exceeded $3 billion (fig. 18.B-E). The season was not over by any means. Tropical Storms Pablo and Sebastien flared up in the Atlantic, and Roxanne, a Category 3 hurricane, threatened to follow Opal in the Gulf. There were anxious moments for Florida's Opal victims as Roxanne danced in the Bay of Campeche less than a week after Opal's impact. Tanya finally ended the season as an October-November Category 1 storm in the Atlantic. At one time near the end of August, Humberto, Iris, Karen, Jerry, and Luis were all going at once in the Atlantic (fig. 19)-just another Atlantic record set during the 1995 hurricane season. © 2002 University Press of Florida. 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