JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Hurricane Laura will go down in history as one of the 10 highest winds to hit the continental U.S., surpassing other Gulf storms like Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Harvey and Ike.
Laura came blasting ashore just east of Cameron, Louisiana, as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph -- just 5 mph shy of a Category 5 storm.
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While 10 other Category 4 storms with 150 mph winds have hit the states, Laura was matched only by an 1856 hurricane for the strongest winds to ever strike Louisiana.
Across the continental U.S., only four storms had higher winds than Laura at landfall:
- The Labor Day Hurricane in 1935 (Florida)
- Hurricane Camille in 1975 (Mississippi)
- Hurricane Andrew in 1992 (Florida)
- Hurricane Michael in 2018 (Florida)
Laura also had the second-lowest sea level pressure, at 938 mb at landfall.
Preliminary data and model simulations indicate that the highest inundation from Hurricane Laura’s storm surge occurred east of Cameron, Louisiana, near the communities of Creole and Grand Chenier, where the eastern eyewall moved onshore.
Fortunately, forecasts predicting a worst-case surge scenario did not occur in most communities.
USGS water level sensors measured a storm surge levels about half as destructive as models forecasted. Still inundation at the coast reached 10.95 feet with the surge pushing 30 miles inland to Lake Charles where water near the I-10 bridge swelled between 3-6 feet.
It took just a day over the western Gulf’s warm water when rapid intensification jumped the storm’s 75 mph winds Tuesday to 140 mph by Wednesday afternoon.
Scientists agree that waters are warming, and that serves as hurricane fuel a premise backed up by NOAA climate research. Scientist Jim Kossin found that, once a storm formed, the chances of its attaining major storm status increased by 49% a decade in the Atlantic.