Hurricane Anita - Storm History

Storm History

A tropical wave moved off the coast of Africa on August 16. The wave axis tracked steadily westward, and on August 23 convection increased after the wave passed beneath a cold-core upper-level low. By August 27, the wave axis was located over Cuba, with the area of convection located between Florida and the Bahamas after tracking northwestward. The disturbance crossed southern Florida, and after entering the Gulf of Mexico an anticyclone provided favorable conditions for further development. It tracked slowly westward at 5 mph (7 km/h), and after developing a surface circulation the system developed into a tropical depression on August 29 while located about 230 miles (370 km) south-southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana.

With a ridge of high pressure to its north, the depression tracked westward. Favorable conditions persisted for several days prior to the arrival of the depression, and as such the depression quickly intensified into Tropical Storm Anita. The storm tracked slowly over warm water temperatures, and throughout its duration it was embedded within warm, moist tropical air; Anita rapidly organized and attained hurricane status late on August 30; this is the latest date for the first hurricane since 1967. Initially it threatened to strike Texas, though building high pressures to the north of the hurricane turned Anita to the west-southwest. The hurricane developed a well-defined eye, and Hurricane Anita began to rapidly intensify late on September 1 after attaining major hurricane status. During a two-day period up to its peak intensity, Anita deepened at a rate of 2 mbar per hour, and on September 2 the hurricane reached peak winds of 175 mph (280 km/h) while located just offshore northeastern Mexico, making Anita a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

Hurricane Anita maintained its strength as it approached land, and at 1100 UTC on September 2 it made landfall on Soto la Marina, Tamaulipas, about 145 miles (235 km) south of Brownsville, Texas or 80 miles (130 km) north of Tampico, Mexico. Moving ashore with a pressure of 926 mbar, Anita was the third most intense tropical cyclone to strike the nation, and was the most intense hurricane to hit from the Gulf of Mexico. It rapidly weakened over the mountainous terrain of Mexico, and on September 3, about 25 hours after moving ashore, Anita emerged into the eastern Pacific Ocean as a tropical depression. Reclassified as Tropical Depression Eleven, the system continued to the west, and weakened further after encountering cooler water temperatures. The depression gradually lost its deep convection, and on September 4 it dissipated off of the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula.