Hurricane Katrina. A climatological perspective. Technical report 2005-01
Hurricane Katrina is the most costly natural disaster ever to strike the United States, and the deadliest since the Lake Okeechobee disaster (hurricane) of September, 1928. In addition, Katrina was one of the strongest storms to impact the coast of the United States during the last 100 years. At landfall, sustained winds were 127 mph (a strong Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale-see Figure 2), and the minimum central pressure was the third lowest on record (920 mb). Katrina caused widespread, massive devastation along the central Gulf Coast states of the U.S. The flooding of New Orleans, LA following the passage of Katrina was catastrophic, resulting in the displacement of more than 250,000 people, a higher number than
during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930’s. As of early August 2006, the death toll exceeded 1800 and total damages/costs were estimated to be around $125 billion. For detailed information in addition to this climatological report, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center has an excellent report online: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2005atlan.shtml