Hurricane Frances

Hurricane Frances was the sixth named storm, the fourth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. The system crossing the open Atlantic during mid-to-late August, moving to the north of the Lesser Antilles while strengthening. Its outer bands affected Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands while passing north of the Caribbean sea. The storm's maximum sustained wind speeds peaked at 145 miles per hour (233 km/h), achieving Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. As the system slowed down its forward motion, the eye passed over San Salvador Island and very close to Cat Island in the Bahamas. Frances was the first hurricane to impact the entire Bahamian archipelago since 1866, and led to the nearly complete destruction of their agricultural economy.

Frances then passed over the central sections of the state of Florida in the U.S. only three weeks after Hurricane Charley, causing significant damage to the state's citrus crop, closing schools and canceling a football game. The storm then moved briefly offshore Florida into the northeast Gulf of Mexico and made a second U.S. landfall at the Florida Panhandle before accelerating northeast through the eastern United States near the Appalachians into Atlantic Canada while weakening. A significant tornado outbreak accompanied the storm across the eastern United States, nearly equaling the outbreak from Hurricane Beulah. Very heavy rains fell in association with this slow moving and relatively large hurricane, which led to floods in Florida and North Carolina. A total of 49 lives were lost from the cyclone. Damages totaled US$12 billion (2004 dollars).