- - On Today's Date: The Deadliest December Tropical Storm Makes Landfall In Florida

Jonathan Belles December 1, 2025 at 4:00 AM

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One hundred days ago today, the deadliest December tropical storm came ashore in Florida.

This late-season tropical storm made landfall early on December 1, 1925, with winds of 65 mph near Fort Myers as a system that was losing tropical characteristics.

Strong offshore winds blew the water out of parts of Tampa Bay in advance of the storm’s landfall. The reverse was true in Jacksonville, where feet of storm surge caused damage up to 100 feet inland, which was incorrectly considered safe from the sea at the time. The damage there totaled $18 million (2025 USD).

The storm brought 15 inches of rain to Miami and downed power, telephone and telegraph lines in the Tampa Bay area. Severe citrus crops damage amounted to more than $11 million in 2025 USD.

At least five vessels were fatally sunk by the storm, including the American S. S. Cotopaxi, which was moving from Charleston to Cuba with a crew of 30 aboard. All were lost off the Southeast coast. The ship was found off the coast of St. Augustine in 2020.

After moving away from Florida, the storm strengthened to 90 mph off the coast of the Carolinas as a hurricane-strength non-tropical low pressure system.

It then made a second landfall in North Carolina between Wilmington and Cape Hatteras with a pressure of 980 mb and minimal hurricane-force winds. The storm finally made an eastward turn into the Atlantic and likely dissipated.

All told, 73 people were killed by the storm, more than 50 of which were offshore. This makes it also the deadliest tropical storm that didn’t become a hurricane.

While this system was originally considered a hurricane, a 2011 reanalysis of the hurricane seasons in the 1920s found no evidence that it reached hurricane status.

Prior to this change, it was the deadliest December hurricane in U.S. history.

The 1925 Atlantic Hurricane Season was one of the least active in recorded history.

Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for weather.com for 9 years and also assists in the production of videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.

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Source: “AOL Breaking”