Hurricane Opal

Hurricane Opal

Category 4 major hurricane (SSHWS/NWS)
Hurricane Opal in the Gulf of Mexico
Formed	September 27, 1995
Dissipated	October 6, 1995
Highest winds	1-minute sustained: 150 mph (240 km/h)
Lowest pressure	916 mbar (hPa); 27.05 inHg
Fatalities	59 direct, 10 indirect[source?]
Damage	$3.9 billion (1995 USD)
Areas affected	Guatemala, Yucatán Peninsula, Alabama, Florida Panhandle, Georgia, most of eastern North America
Part of the 1995 Atlantic hurricane season

Hurricane Opal was a major hurricane that formed in the Gulf of Mexico in September 1995.

Opal was the 9th hurricane of the highly active 1995 Atlantic hurricane season. Opal was the strongest hurricane of the 1995 Atlantic hurricane season. It crossed the Yucatán Peninsula while still a tropical depression from September 27, then strengthened northward in the Gulf, becoming the most powerful Category 4 Atlantic hurricane before making a second landfall, October 4, in the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola as a 125-mph (201-km/h) hurricane. Opal devastated the Pensacola/Panhandle area with a 15-ft (5-m) storm surge and travelled up the entire state of Alabama, becoming a tropical storm in Tennessee. Opal also caused heavy damage in the mid-Atlantic states before dissipating.

Afterward, 50 people had died from flooding by Opal in Guatemala and Mexico, with another 13 deaths in the United States directly or indirectly related to Opal. Preliminary damage estimates were $3 billion.^[1]

1. ↑ "weather.com — Storm Encyclopedia" (section "Hurricane Opal"), Weather.com, 2007, webpage: WeatherCom-1995-storms Archived 2007-06-24 at the Wayback Machine.