Meteorological History
On September 11, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) began monitoring a tropical wave off the western coast of Africa. Tracking towards the west, the wave entered the Caribbean Sea several days later before merging with a broad area of low pressure in the western Caribbean sea on September 23. Weak steering currents around the low caused it to slowly drift towards the Yucatán Peninsula while gradually becoming better organized. The system was classified as a tropical depression on September 27 while 70 nautical miles (130 km) south-southeast of Cozumel. The depression slowly moved over the Yucatán for the next several days, eventually emerging over the Bay of Campeche, where it was officially upgraded to Tropical Storm Opal.
After languishing for days and nearly dissipating due to the ocean-cooling effect of its own rainfall, it rapidly intensified to a hurricane and began moving north across the Gulf of Mexico. It deepened to a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and a central pressure of 916 millibars (27.0 inHg) possibly due to crossing the Loop Current.
During this period of rapid strengthening, a small eye formed with a diameter of only about 6 miles (9.7 km). The hurricane then underwent an eyewall replacement cycle to a 60-mile (97-km) eye, combined with increasing wind shear, causing the pressure to rise steadily over the next 8 hours to 940 millibars (28 inHg) as the maximum sustained winds diminished to 125 mph (201 km/h). Opal weakened still to 115 mph (185 km/h) before its final landfall in Santa Rosa Island, Florida on October 4.
Opal remained a hurricane for nearly 12 hours after landfall, its rapid forward speed propelling it the entire length of Alabama before being downgraded to a tropical storm as it crossed into Tennessee. Over the following 12 hours, it was not downgraded to a tropical depression until it reached Ohio, and not declared extratropical until reaching Canada, where it still managed to bring squally conditions.
Read more about this topic: Hurricane Opal
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