1998 North Atlantic hurricane season
Hurricane Mitch 1998
Hurricane Mitch's slow passage across Central America in 1998 produced one of the Atlantic's worst hurricane disasters. Days of rain flooded communities and triggered landslides long after its winds had fallen below their Category 5 peak.
Drag to pan. Pinch or Ctrl/⌘ + scroll to zoom. Keyboard: plus or minus to zoom, arrow keys to pan, and 0 to show the full track.
178 mph
Oct 26, 1998 during the tropical stage
Full archive record, including non-tropical stages if present
Along the recorded center positions
STORM HISTORY
A Caribbean peak before a slow landfall
Mitch developed in the southwestern Caribbean on October 22 and became a hurricane two days later. Warm water and favorable upper-level conditions supported rapid strengthening. On October 26, it reached maximum one-minute winds of 155 kt and a central pressure of 905 hPa.
The hurricane drifted southwest and weakened before reaching Honduras at Category 1 strength. Its slow movement across Central America prolonged the rainfall. Mitch later regenerated over the Bay of Campeche, crossed Florida as a tropical storm and accelerated northeast across the Atlantic after becoming extratropical.
Floods and landslides across Central America
Honduras suffered destruction to housing, roads, bridges and crops. Mitch destroyed about 35,000 homes and damaged another 50,000, leaving as many as 1.5 million people homeless there. More than 70 percent of the country's transport infrastructure suffered damage. In Tegucigalpa, a large landslide affected three neighborhoods and formed a temporary dam.
Flooding and landslides also devastated Nicaragua and Guatemala. The saved account records more than 11,000 confirmed deaths across the disaster area, with thousands more missing. Damage totaled about US$6 billion in 1998 currency. Food and safe-water shortages complicated recovery, and governments sought sustained international assistance. Officials retired the name Mitch after the disaster.
IMPACT
Reported impact
| Deaths | 19,325 |
|---|---|
| Areas affected | Honduras |
US impacts by state
Selected NOAA Storm Events records for hurricane, tropical storm and storm surge events during this storm's archived track. Deaths and injuries include reported direct and indirect impacts. These records are incomplete, particularly for indirect deaths, and are not storm-wide totals. Other hazards and impacts outside the US are excluded.
| State or territory | Deaths | Injuries | Property damage (event-year USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 2 | 65 | Not fully reported |
Property damage is reported in dollars of the event year, without inflation adjustment; crop damage is excluded. A missing value is not zero. These figures do not replace the storm-wide estimates elsewhere on this page.
Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database.
Further reading
NOAA IBTrACS v04r01 historical track archive
Official report (PDF) — National Hurricane Center, Tropical Cyclone Report.
QUICK ANSWERS
Mitch in brief
What was Hurricane Mitch's highest wind speed?
178 mph, the highest one-minute sustained wind in its tropical stage, recorded on Oct 26, 1998, 06:00 PM UTC.
What category was Hurricane Mitch?
Category 5 at its peak on the Saffir–Simpson one-minute wind scale, first reaching Category 5 on Oct 26, 1998, 09:00 AM UTC. Other agencies classify storms differently.
What was Hurricane Mitch's lowest pressure?
905 mb, the minimum central pressure recorded during its tropical stage, on Oct 26, 1998, 06:00 PM UTC.
When did Hurricane Mitch occur?
The archived track runs from Oct 22, 1998, 12:00 AM UTC to Nov 9, 1998, 06:00 PM UTC, with the tropical stage from Oct 22, 1998, 12:00 AM UTC to Nov 5, 1998, 03:00 PM UTC.
Where did Hurricane Mitch form?
In the North Atlantic basin, in the 1998 season. Its first archived position is 11.6°N, 76.1°W on Oct 22, 1998, 12:00 AM UTC.
Did Hurricane Mitch make landfall?
The archive places its center over land at 3 recorded positions; the strongest is 81 mph on Oct 29, 1998, 12:00 PM UTC. Positions are six-hourly, so this is not a landfall chronology.
How many people died in Hurricane Mitch?
19,325 deaths are recorded by Wikidata.
METHODOLOGY
Data sources and limitations
The map and summary are generated from NOAA's IBTrACS v04r01 archive. Wind and category use US-agency records; minimum pressure is calculated during the tropical stage, with the archive's pressure source retained. Category 5 refers to the Saffir–Simpson one-minute wind scale; local agencies may use different classifications. Coastlines use Natural Earth's 1:10m land data.
Track distance adds great-circle distances between consecutive observations, excluding gaps over 12 hours. This track has no gaps over 12 hours. The line shows the storm's center, not its size, rainfall or flood extent. Converted wind speeds are rounded to the nearest whole unit.
Archive retrieved
NOAA IBTrACS archive and Field documentation
Sources & methodology