Looking Back at the Worst October Hurricanes

Melissa is crawling through the Caribbean and threatening to explode into a major hurricane. While this may seem like too late in the season to experience a storm of this magnitude, the month of October has produced some of the most dangerous storms in history. Read on for details of five of the worst October hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S.

Hurricane Mitch - October 1998

It only took four days for Tropical Storm Mitch to intensify into a Category 5 hurricane. According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Mitch holds the record for the eighth most powerful Atlantic hurricane, as well as the second-strongest hurricane in the month of October.

Mitch first made landfall as a Category 1 storm in Honduras, whipping up the winds and sending feet of storm surge up the coast. The torrential rain and resulting flooding killed thousands of people in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. The storm then moved back out into the Gulf before making a second landfall in Florida as a tropical storm. Despite its weakening, Mitch killed two people and caused $40 million in damage in the U.S.