Ferocious Hurricane Devastated Miami 100 Years Ago Today
A century after the Great Miami Hurricane, the loss and survival stories still resonate. On Sept. 18, 1926, floodwaters inundated Moore Haven, Florida. The Category 4 storm hit South Florida with winds up to 150 miles per hour and storm surge up to 15 feet. It killed hundreds, devastated communities and helped end the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 storm also flooded Lake Okeechobee and Moore Haven, killing 23 people in one collapsed house. In Clewiston, about 250 people died, roughly two-thirds of the hurricane’s deaths. Later estimates said a similar storm could cause more than $1 billion, perhaps $500 billion in the 2020s, and about $165 billion when the 1926 damage was normalized, making it more devastating than Hurricane Katrina.
Tropical Storm Fay has formed far out in the Atlantic Ocean and currently poses little hazard to life or property, the National Hurricane Center said, as the ongoing El Niño weather pattern suppresses the formation of Atlantic hurricanes.
In the Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Odalys is forecast to become a hurricane on Sept. 21.
Fay’s 45 mph winds were about 450 miles southwest of the Azores and moving north northeast at about 5 mph, the hurricane center said in a Sept. 20 early morning advisory. Fay is the sixth named storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. No hurricanes have made landfall on the Atlantic coast this year. The storm is about 2,000 miles from Washington, DC.
“Fay will likely become a remnant low on Tuesday and dissipate by the end of the week as it is expected to remain in unfavorable environmental conditions,” the hurricane center said in the morning’s forecast discussion.
Although El Niño occurs in the Pacific Ocean, high-elevation winds spawned by the high water temperatures cross the United States and then interfere with hurricane formation in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The same El Niño conditions that limit Atlantic hurricane formation can also boost Pacific hurricanes, NOAA said.
Off the western coast of southern Mexico, Odalys had sustained wind speeds of 40 mph and was moving northwest. The storm is expected to become a hurricane sometime Monday, Sept. 21, according to the hurricane center. Odalys does not yet pose a risk to life or property, the hurricane center said, and is moving northwest at about 8 mph.
Atlantic hurricane season officially runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, with 97% of tropical cyclone activity occurring during this time period, according to NOAA, although storms can and do form outside that window.