Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 26, 2008



The meteorological history of Hurricane Wilma, the most intense known tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere, began in the second week of October 2005. A large area of disturbed weather developed across much of the Caribbean Sea and gradually organized to the southeast of Jamaica. By late on October 15, the system was sufficiently organized for the National Hurricane Center to designate it as Tropical Depression Twenty-Four. The depression drifted southwestward, and under favorable conditions, it strengthened into Tropical Storm Wilma on October 17. From October 18 and through the following day, Wilma underwent explosive deepening over the open waters of the Caribbean; in a 30-hour period, the system's central atmospheric pressure dropped to the record-low value of 882 mbar (26.05 inHg), while the winds increased to 185 mph (295 km/h). After the inner eye dissipated due to an eyewall replacement cycle, Wilma weakened to Category 4 status, and on October 21, it made landfall on Cozumel and on the Mexican mainland with winds of about 150 mph (240 km/h). (more...)

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