Hurricane Ethel formed in the Gulf of Mexico on the morning of 14 September 1960, rapidly intensified into a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane, and weakened back to a tropical storm before making landfall near Biloxi, Mississippi, the next evening. Because of the rapid weakening, the storm caused little damage and no deaths.
Soon after Tropical Storm Ethel formed north of the Yucatán Peninsula on the morning of September 14, a Marine ...
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Hurricane Ethel formed in the Gulf of Mexico on the morning of 14 September 1960, rapidly intensified into a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane, and weakened back to a tropical storm before making landfall near Biloxi, Mississippi, the next evening. Because of the rapid weakening, the storm caused little damage and no deaths.
Soon after Tropical Storm Ethel formed north of the Yucatán Peninsula on the morning of September 14, a Marine Automatic Meteorological Observing System buoy in the central Gulf of Mexico began to record gale-force winds. Ethel developed rapidly into a full-fledged hurricane by midday and into an intense hurricane by the evening.
Reconnaissance aircraft reported a central pressure of 972 mbar and flight-level winds of 160 mph (260 km/h). Despite a central pressure typical of a Category 2 hurricane, the extreme winds justify rating Ethel a Category 5, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.
Ethel maintained Category 5 intensity only...
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