Hurricane Emily (2005)
| Category 5 hurricane ( SSHWS ) | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Emergence | July 11, 2005 | |
| resolution | July 21, 2005 | |
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Peak wind speed |
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| Lowest air pressure | 929 mbar ( hPa ; 27.4 inHg ) | |
| dead | 17 total | |
| Property damage | US $ 1 billion (2005) | |
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Affected areas |
Windward Islands , Jamaica , Cayman Islands , Yucatán , northeastern Mexico , southern tip of Texas | |
| Season overview: Atlantic hurricane season 2005 |
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The Hurricane Emily raged from July 10th to 21st July 2005 in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico . It moved over the Mexican peninsula Yucatán and broke up over northern Mexico. He caused the death of probably 10 people.
It was the strongest pre-August hurricane in history and in this capacity replaced Hurricane Dennis, which had occurred only a few days earlier. The air pressure in the center of Emily was 929 millibars , the wind speed reached 260 km / h. This puts Emily on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale of level 5.
course
Emily formed on July 10, 2005 as a tropical depression over the mid-Atlantic. Initial weather forecasts had predicted a course towards the Greater Antilles , instead the orbit ran a little further south over the Leeward Islands , over which Emily passed as a relatively moderate tropical storm. On the evening of July 13th, Emily reached hurricane strength near Tobago and initially moved over Grenada . On the morning of July 15th, strength 5 was reached, although the intensity fluctuated violently. On July 16, the winds of the hurricane, which passed Jamaica and the Cayman Islands south, reached 260 km / h. In the early morning hours of July 18, Emily reached mainland Mexico in the east of the Yucatán at 230 km / h , with the eye of the hurricane sweeping over the tourist center of Cozumel . The land passage weakened the wind speed to 121 km / h, but when Emily reached the Gulf of Mexico later in the morning, the hurricane increased again. The predictions initially expected that if the hurricane reached the western coast of the Gulf, it would continue to be extremely dangerous; but Emily weakened a little as she neared the coast. On the morning of July 20, Emily reached the Mexican province of Tamaulipas at a speed of 205 km / h, but then quickly lost momentum and weakened to a simple storm over the Sierra Madre Oriental.
Damage
In the eastern Caribbean, Grenada in particular suffered substantial property damage worth around $ 110 million. In Jamaica, the heavy rains caused landslides ; four people were killed on the island. Many thousands of vacationers in Mexico had to be evacuated from the vacation areas of Yucatán. Several oil platforms off the coast were also cleared, whereby two pilots died in a helicopter accident. Property damage in the Yucatán was estimated at $ 25 million, with a total death toll of 14 and damage of over $ 135 million.