As Hurricane Milton intensifies in the Gulf of Mexico, a look at some of the strongest storms to hit the U.S. and the devastation that accompanied each.
Hurricane Milton strengthened to a powerful Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday with sustained winds of 175 mph as it nears Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, just weeks after rapid intensification turned Hurricane Helene into a monster storm.
Milton went from a Category 2 to 5 in only a matter of hours on Monday. Milton’s intensity is expected to weaken before the storm makes landfall later this week, but Milton will still threaten the Florida coast as a major and deadly hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory.
Hurricane Helene, which has been linked to more than 200 deaths across the southeastern U.S., made landfall along Florida’s Big Bend on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds.
The 175 mph winds sustained by Milton on Monday tie it with other infamous hurricanes like Andrew and Katrina on the strongest Atlantic Hurricanes of all time. Here are some other comparable storms.
Hurricane Allen
- Year: 1980Â
- Location: Made landfall on South Padre Island, Texas
- Peak Wind Speed: 190 mph
- Deaths: 269
- What happened: Allen is considered to be the only hurricane in the history of the Atlantic basin to reach 190 mph of sustained winds. The winds of the storm were so powerful that until Hurricane Patricia in 2015, Allen’s peak wind speed was the highest sustained winds in the Western Hemisphere.
Hurricane WilmaÂ
- Year: 2005
- Location: Made landfall in Cape Romano, Florida
- Peak Wind Speed: 185 mph
- Deaths: 52
- What happened: Another powerful hurricane, Wilma is considered to be the most intense cyclone in the history of the Atlantic basin and the second-most intense in the Western hemisphere in terms of barometric pressure. The same year as another infamous hurricane, Katrina, it was part of the devastating 2005 hurricane season.
Hurricane Andrew
- Year: 1992
- Location: Elliot Key, Florida, about nine miles east of Homestead
- Peak Wind Speed: 175 mph
- Deaths: 65
- What happened: The Category 5 hurricane is considered one of the most destructive hurricanes to hit Florida. Andrew was the costliest hurricane in Florida’s history until Hurricane Irma passed it 25 years later, according to the National Hurricane Center, Irma caused around $77 billion dollars in damages.
Hurricane Katrina
- Year: 2005
- Location: Three landfalls, one in Keating Beach, Florida and two others near Buras, Louisiana and near the Louisiana-Mississippi border
- Peak Wind Speed: 175 mph
- Deaths: 1,392
- What happened: Ranked as the deadliest storm since 1950, Katrina is tied with Hurricane Harvey as the costliest Atlantic hurricane on record, according to the National Hurricane Center. The largest reason for deaths connected to Katrina was the failure of the levees around New Orleans which caused catastrophic flooding in the area.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.