Storm Update: Blowin' in the Wind

It's a day for history: two hurricanes made landfall on the same day. Felix was a Category 5 again when it hit a relatively unpopulated area of Central America, while the Pacific storm Henriette achieved hurricane status just before it hit Baja. They left several deaths and unknown destruction; their residual winds and rains are likely to cause still more damage over the next few days.

This morning's Wunderblog notes that there have been 27 category 5 hurricanes since reliable records began in 1944. Eight of them have been in the past five years, and now we're two for two this year. It's the first time that two
Category 5s have made landfall in the same year. Fortunately they did not hit highly populated or built-up places. When Katrina made landfall near New Orleans, it was a category 3.