35th Anniversary of Hurricane Kate’s Landfall

This weekend marks 35 years since the landfall of Hurricane Kate, known for being the latest hurricane to strike the United States in recorded history. Meteorologist Steve Glazier takes you through the evolution of the storm in this short video below:

Kate formed as a tropical storm in mid-November 1985 north-northwest of Puerto Rico and north-northeast of Hispaniola. The storm steadily gained strength and became a hurricane across the Southeast Bahamas. Kate made its first landfall in Cuba as a strong hurricane before evolving across the eastern Gulf of Mexico. It was here where Hurricane Kate reached its strongest intensity. Kate then weakened prior to landfall in Florida, but it was still a category 2 hurricane packing winds of 100 miles per hour. Kate made landfall late on November 21st near Mexico Beach on Florida’s panhandle.

Kate still stands as the latest hurricane to make landfall in the United States in a calendar year, on record. It shows that we can still see these strong tropical cyclones around the time of Thanksgiving.