1966 Atlantic hurricane season

An early start, a late finish

Arnold Sugg, writing for the National Hurricane Center, said the season began early and ended late. Storm numbers ran only slightly above normal, but hurricanes were active on 50 days against an average of 33, and June and November each logged more hurricane days than in the previous 12 years combined. Only three earlier years since 1871 had produced their fifth tropical cyclone as early as July. The Miami Weather Bureau office took the name National Hurricane Center in 1966.

The site counts 15 tropical storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes, with accumulated cyclone energy of 137 in its archive calculation. The count includes three storms that the reanalysis added: one from 28 June to 2 July, which the Weather Bureau had tracked as a depression, and two in the second half of November. It also includes Kendra, which Sugg's summary said was not a tropical storm on post-analysis; the reanalysis restored it as a tropical storm in October.

Hurricane Alma, the earliest Florida hurricane in 141 years

Alma grew from a fractured trough over Nicaragua and Honduras in early June. On the night of 5 June, San Rafael, Honduras, recorded 30 inches of rain; the town was nearly destroyed and 73 people died, which Sugg attributed to Alma. The storm became a hurricane on 6 June and crossed the Isle of Pines and Havana Province on 8 June, where Havana measured 110 mph winds.

Alma passed between the Dry Tortugas and Key West, and the reanalysis estimates 100 kt, Category 3, winds over the lower Keys, which matches its peak in the archive. It weakened offshore and came ashore near St. Marks, Florida, on 9 June at 75 kt, Category 1. Only a hurricane in 1825 had struck the United States earlier in the year. Tides up to 10 feet inundated much of Cedar Key. Sugg listed six deaths in Florida from heart attacks, drownings and electrocutions, while later accounts give Alma's toll across its path as 90 deaths and about $210 million, in 1966 dollars.

A busy July and Faith's long voyage

July brought four named storms, all at sea. Becky became a hurricane 300 miles southeast of Bermuda, a ship passing through its center measured 985 mb, and it weakened south of Newfoundland. Celia faded near the Leeward Islands, then revived off the Bahamas and raced north to western Newfoundland. Dorothy stalled west of the Azores. Ella never organized and died east of the Bahamas.

Hurricane Faith held hurricane strength for 15 days as it circled the south, west and north sides of the Bermuda high. It passed within 25 miles of Sint Maarten, reached its lowest pressure of 950 mb and 105 kt peak in early September, and later crossed the Faeroe Islands. Sugg called the track, which extended into the Arctic Ocean, one of the longest hurricane paths on record. Four people died at sea: a sailor on the Alberto Benati, a ferry passenger off Denmark and two men rowing across the Atlantic.

Inez from Guadeloupe to Cuba

Inez left the African coast as a weak depression on 18 September and became a hurricane on 26 September. The reanalysis places its landfall on Guadeloupe at 110 kt and 958 mb on 27 September. Over the eastern Caribbean on 28 September, aircraft measured the storm's lowest pressure, 927 mb, and a research plane recorded 197 mph at 8,000 feet, the highest speed that aircraft had logged. The eye struck the Barahona Peninsula of the Dominican Republic late on the morning of 29 September, and the reanalysis gives 140 kt, Category 5, at that landfall, the same as the archive peak.

Inez crossed southern Haiti that afternoon at 100 kt and reached Guantánamo on 30 September, where 138 mph winds were reported. Instead of recurving, it lost organization over the mountains, drifted along Cuba's south coast for about 36 hours, then crawled north across central Cuba. A small tornado in Nassau killed a 15-month-old child on 2 October.

Inez turns back across the Keys and the Gulf

A ridge built north of Inez while it lingered over Cuba, and on 4 October the hurricane turned west-southwest. The eye passed over the Keys from Key Largo to Key West, and the reanalysis gives two Keys landfalls at 85 kt, Category 2. Flamingo on the mainland recorded a 92 mph gust. Sugg wrote that 45 of the 54 deaths in the United States in 1966 happened in one marine accident, when Cuban refugees tried to cross the Florida Straits.

Inez brushed northern Yucatán on 7 October, deepened to 948 mb in the Gulf and threatened Texas for about a day before rising pressure pushed it into Mexico just north of Tampico on 10 October. The reanalysis gives that final landfall at 100 kt and 961 mb, and Tampico reported gusts to 127 mph before communications failed. Sugg estimated about 1,000 deaths along the entire track. The National Hurricane Center issued 65 advisories on Inez, the most for any hurricane to that point.

Hurricane Lois formed in early November and stayed at sea, and two storms the reanalysis added closed the season in late November.