No, Hurricane Otto will not number among this short list, for these historicOctober storms are the stuff of meteorological giants.Take Hurricane Wilma, of October 2005. The third of three Category 5 stormsthat year, Wilma became the most intense Atlantic tropical cyclone measuredupon acquiring a lowest sea-level pressure of 26.05 inches of mercury, or 882millibars. Wilma went on to devastate much of South Florida.
Then there is the frightfully deadly Hurricane Mitch, which terrorizedHonduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and southeastern Mexico in October of 1998. Thedeath toll owing to Mitch is not fully known, but it numbers in the tens ofthousands.
Hurricane Hazel spread death and devastation from Haiti to Ontario, Canada, inOctober 1954. Toronto suffered inordinately, as much of the 81 Canadian deathshappened here. In the United States, this storm made a Category 4 landfall onthe North Carolina-South Carolina border.
Interestingly, four of these five great hurricanes crossed Florida, all of themstriking from the southwest. These included powerful Gladys (1968) and Opal(1995). Hazel was the exception, as it steed east of the Sunshine State.
Story by AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Jim Andrews
