When Hurricane Michael made landfall on the Florida Panhandle in October of 2018, it caused absolute havoc. The storm was originally estimated to have hit at Category 4, though it seems that categorization might have been incorrect. New post-storm analyses show it hit at Category 5 when it touched down.
Hurricane Michael Category 5 When it Touched Down
Stronger Than Thought
New post-storm analyses have drawn new conclusions about the 2018 hurricane. It now appears that the storm had winds at 160 mph even when it hit land. As such, Michael is only the fourth ever Cat 5 hurricane to touch down on US soil.
Originally, it was thought that the storm had wind speeds up to 155 mph when it hit land on October 10th. That would have made the storm on the high end of Category 4. However, no matter the recorded windspeeds, the storm was incredibly destructive.
Destructive Power
The destructive power of the storm was nearly unprecedented. While only a small portion of the coast was exposed to the full force of the Category 5 wind speeds, the destruction was widespread across the Panhandle and even into the Carolinas.
The storm was directly responsible for no less than 16 deaths, and indirectly could have cause as many as 30 more. Economically, roughly $25 billion in damage was wrought in the United States alone. That’s not counting the amount of damage the storm wreaked on the islands before making US landfall.
What This Means
While this new up-tick in Categorization is interesting for academic reasons, it has no bearing on the actual damage the storm wrought. Hurricane Michael’s categorization is more important for chronicling weather history than for assessing the damage it dealt to the coast.
The last Category 5 storm to hit the US before Michael was Andrew in 1992. Before that, Camille hit in 1969 and the Labor Day Hurricane was a Category 5 in 1935.