Meteorological history of Hurricane Gordon

Hurricane Gordon formed near Panama in the southwestern Caribbean on November 8, 1994. As a tropical depression, it brushed Nicaragua and spent several days in the waters off the country’s coast. Strengthening slightly into a tropical storm, Gordon wound its way north into the Greater Antilles. After a few days as an unusual hybrid of a tropical and a subtropical system in the Gulf of Mexico, the storm re-claimed its fully tropical form. In the Atlantic, Gordon rapidly strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane.

About Meteorological history of Hurricane Gordon in brief

Summary Meteorological history of Hurricane GordonHurricane Gordon formed near Panama in the southwestern Caribbean on November 8, 1994. As a tropical depression, it brushed Nicaragua and spent several days in the waters off the country’s coast. Strengthening slightly into a tropical storm, Gordon wound its way north into the Greater Antilles. Executing a slow turn to the north and then the northwest, Gordon made two more landfalls, on eastern Jamaica and eastern Cuba, while delivering tremendous rains to western Hispaniola. After a few days as an unusual hybrid of a tropical and a subtropical system in the Gulf of Mexico, the storm re-claimed its fully tropical form and made yet another landfall, this time across the Florida peninsula. In the Atlantic, Gordon rapidly strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Gordon’s characteristic wandering briefly brought it near North Carolina, but ultimately the storm headed south, weakening into a minor tropical storm before making its sixth and final landfall on Florida’s east coast. Hurricane Gordon was the seventh named storm and third hurricane of the 1994 Atlantic hurricane season.

Although it never made landfall as a hurricane, in its meandering course the storm included six separate landfalls: four as tropical storm and two as a tropical Depression. Three of its landfalls were in the U.S. state of Florida. Its sustained winds were 40 mph, but as the system approached eastern Cuba a gust of 120 mph was reported near Guantánamo Bay. Its center crossed over the eastern portion of the island and dumped heavy rainfall as it passed over the west, in Haiti; even heavier rain fell at Camp-Perrin where it was recorded at 94 in. Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center determined that it had become the most dominant low-level cyclone of these years. This cyclone was covering most of the Caribbean Sea and was interacting with an upper-level trough near the Straits of Florida that was covering the broad-scale circulation that was covered by the Atlantic Ocean. The storm was still still only still only only only 45 mph when it crossed over eastern Cuba and was reported to have become a hurricane.