The Poster Shack.
from
Hurricane Mitch
October 26, 1998
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Hurricane Mitch
October 26, 1998
The Deadliest Atlantic Hurricane Since 1780 up to that date.
In an awesome display of power and destruction, Hurricane Mitch will be remembered as the most deadly hurricane to strike the Western Hemisphere in the last two centuries! Not since the Great Hurricane of 1780, which killed approximately 22,000 people in the eastern Caribbean, was there a more deadly hurricane. Mitch struck Central America with such viciousness that it was nearly a week before the magnitude of the disaster began to reach the outside world. The death toll currently is reported as 11,000 with thousands of others missing. Though the final death toll will never be known, it is quite likely that Mitch directly killed more people than any Atlantic hurricane in over 200 years. More than three million people were either homeless or severely affected. In this extremely poor third world region of the globe, estimates of the total damage from the storm are at $5 billion and higher.
Category 5 Monster. Within four days of its birth as a tropical depression on October 22, Mitch had grown into a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. By 2100 UTC on October 26, the monster storm had deepened to a pressure of 905 millibars with sustained winds of 155 knots (180 mph) and gusts well over 200 mph! Mitch thus became tied for the fourth strongest Atlantic hurricane on record based upon barometric pressure values. Though the pressure began rising six hours later, Mitch remained at Category 5 status for a continuous period of 33 hours - the longest continuous period for a Category 5 storm since the 36 consecutive hours by Hurricane David in 1979. In addition, Mitch maintained sustained winds of 155 knots for 15 hours - the third longest period of such winds on record after the continuous 18 hours of 155 knot winds or higher by Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Dog in 1950. Though exact comparisons are suspect due to differing frequencies in observation times (3-hourly versus 6-hourly observations) and a bias in earlier years toward higher estimated wind speeds, it is quite apparent that Mitch was one of the stronger storms ever recorded in the Atlantic.
Assualt on Central America. After threatening Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, Mitch moved westward and by 2100 UTC on October 27, the Category 5 storm was about 60 miles north of Trujilo on the north coast of Honduras. Preliminary wave height estimates north of Honduras during this time at the height of the hurricane are as high as 44 feet, according to one wave model. Although its ferocious winds began to abate slowly, it took Mitch two days to drift southward to make landfall. Coastal regions and the offshore Honduran island of Guanaja were devastated. Mitch then began a slow westward drift through the mountainous interior of Honduras, finally reaching the border with Guatemala two days later on October 31. Although the ferocity of the winds decreased during the westward drift, the storm produced enormous amounts of precipitation caused in part by the mountains of Central America. As Mitch's feeder bands swirled into its center from both the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean to its south, the stage was set for a disaster of epic proportions. Taking into account the orographic effects by the volcanic peaks of Central America and Mitch's slow movement, rain fell at the rate of a foot or two per day in many of the mountainous regions. Total rainfall has been reported as high as 75 inches for the entire storm. The resulting floods and mud slides virtually destroyed the entire infrastructure of Honduras and devastated parts of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador. Whole villages and their inhabitants were swept away in the torrents of flood waters and deep mud that came rushing down the mountainsides. Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed.
Re-birth and Florida Land Fall. The remnants of Mitch drifted northwestward as a weak depression and entered the Bay of Campeche on November 2. Over the warm waters and favorable conditions aloft, Mitch once more regained tropical storm status and began moving rapidly northeastward. It struck the western side of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula which weakened it to tropical depression status once again. As Mitch moved back over the Gulf of Mexico, it regained tropical storm status for the third time. It raced northeastward and pounded Key West with tropical storm force winds and heavy rains on November 4-5. Some of the roofs and buildings damaged by Hurricane Georges in September fell victim to Mitch. Rains of six to eight inches were common in southern Florida and several tornadoes struck the region. At least 7 were injured when a tornado swept from Marathon to Key Largo. A second tornado touched down at Miramar north of Miami. At Fowey Rocks Lighthouse, just southeast of Miami, a wind gust of 73 mph was reported. Across south Florida, some 100,000 customers lost electrical power. One person was killed in the U.S. near Dry Tortugas when a fisherman died from a capsized boat. A second person was missing. Another person died as a result of an auto accident on a slick highway. Mitch passed through the Bahamas and finally became extratropical on November 5.
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Satellite Images, Posters, Prints, and pictures of Hurricane Mitch from Abama Inc.
