The 1998 Atlantic hurricane season was an active Atlantic hurricane season that produced fourteen tropical cyclones and tropical storms, ten hurricanes, and three major hurricanes. It officially started on June 1 and ended on November 30, dates which conventionally delimit the period during which most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic Ocean. The first tropical cyclone, Tropical Storm Alex, developed on July 27, and the season's final storm, Hurricane Nicole, dissipated on December 1. The most intense hurricane, Mitch, is tied with Hurricane Dean for the seventh most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded as well as the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history. Additionally, the system dropped tremendous amounts of rainfall in Guatemala, becoming the wettest tropical cyclone at that location on record. The season was the first to feature a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale since Hurricane Andrew in the 1992 season.
Several storms made landfall or directly affected land. Hurricane Bonnie made landfall in southeastern North Carolina as a Category 2 hurricane in late August killing five people and causing about $1 billion (1998 USD) in damage. Hurricane Earl made landfall in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane causing $79 million in damage and killing three people. The two deadliest and destructive hurricanes of the season, Hurricane Georges and Mitch, caused $5.9 billion in damage and $6.2 billion in damage, respectively. Hurricane Georges was an intense Category 4 hurricane that moved through many of the Caribbean Islands causing significant damage before making landfall near Biloxi, Mississippi at Category 3 intensity. Hurricane Mitch was a very powerful and destructive late-season hurricane that affected much of Central America before making landfall in Florida as a tropical storm. The significant amount of rainfall that Mitch produced across Central America caused significant damage and killed at least 11,000 people, making the system the second deadliest hurricane in recorded history, behind only the "Great Hurricane".
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Famous quotes containing the words atlantic, hurricane and/or season:
“They commonly celebrate those beaches only which have a hotel on them, not those which have a humane house alone. But I wished to see that seashore where man’s works are wrecks; to put up at the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is land-lord as well as sea-lord, and comes ashore without a wharf for the landing; where the crumbling land is the only invalid, or at best is but dry land, and that is all you can say of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Staid middle age loves the hurricane passions of opera.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Compare ... the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)