Meteorological History
On September 17, a tropical wave emerged off the western coast of Africa, and into the Atlantic Ocean. The disturbance followed another tropical wave which became Hurricane Faye several days later. Operationally, the information about the early stages of the disturbance was unknown until later when a review of storm data showed that the system became a tropical depression on September 22. The depression then strengthened into a tropical storm and was named Gladys by the National Hurricane Center on September 24. After becoming a tropical storm, Gladys slowly intensified as winds increased to 50 mph (80 km/h). The storm then moved west-northwest where it reached hurricane strength on September 25 where it encountered wind shear. Despite the wind shear, Gladys managed to maintain hurricane strength as the pressure rose to 1000 millibars on September 28.
After passing though the strong area of wind shear, the storm began to strengthen further as it interacted with an upper level southeasterly flow. On September 29, the center of Gladys passed 350 miles (563.2 km) north of Puerto Rico as the storm continued moving west-northwest at 12 mph (19 km/h). Later that day, the barometric pressure fell to 975 millibars as the winds increased to 90 mph (145 km/h), and a clear eye was visible on satellite imagery. The following day, the hurricane further strengthened due to decreasing wind shear and a building high pressure area. The storm's winds reached 110 mph (177 km/h) and its forward speed increased to 15 mph (24 km/h) as the storm continued west northwest. On October 1, Gladys began to recurve as an anticyclone developed over the storm. The interaction with the system allowed the hurricane strengthen rapidly. By October 2, the barometric pressure fell to 939 millibars and the winds peaked to 140 mph (215 km/h) as the storm recurved northeast at 23 mph (37 km/h). Gladys passed 70 miles (113 km) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland before merging with an extratropical storm by October 4.
Read more about this topic: Hurricane Gladys (1975)
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