Hurricane Rita (2005)

Rita formed from a tropical wave that had developed off West Africa, becoming a tropical depression on September 17, 2005, east of Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands. It became a hurricane on September 20 as it passed westward through the Florida Straits into the Gulf of Mexico, then strengthened rapidly and reached its peak late on September 21 with winds of 178 mph and a central pressure of 895 millibars about 300 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Parishes in southwest Louisiana and counties in southeast Texas near the landfall point suffered severe to catastrophic flooding and wind damage, and the storm surge inundated low-lying communities along the whole Louisiana coast, topping levees at New Orleans that had been hurriedly repaired after Hurricane Katrina less than a month earlier. Damage totalled about $18.5 billion in 2005 dollars.

Formed (UTC)

2005-09-18

Dissipated (UTC)

2005-09-26

Peak Saffir-Simpson category

5

Peak wind (knots, 1-minute)

155

Basin it formed in

North Atlantic

IBTrACS storm page

ncics.org/ibtracs/index.php?name=v04r01-2005261N21290

Category: Disasters & Incidents

Tags: hurricane, category 5, louisiana, texas, gulf of mexico, storm surge

Coordinates: 25.310380643147145, -88.52076128629429

Part of Atlantic hurricanes of category 4 and above in the 2000 to 2007 seasons

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