100th anniversary of the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane

The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 made landfall in Miami on the morning of September 18, 1926.

I am publishing this post one month ahead of the anniversary to share some new wind speed maps I created, which I hope can be useful to the community as the centennial approaches.

Miami-Dade County has had 12 major hurricanes (Category 3+) pass within 20 miles in the past century. There were two in 1926, including the Great Miami Hurricane, then the others were in 1929, 1935, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1950 (King), 1960 (Donna), 1965 (Betsy), 1992 (Andrew), and 2005 (Wilma).  That's an average return period of 8.3 years, but clearly, they aren't bound to that average.  Four of the twelve occurred in just six years from 1945-1950. Luckily, there have been zero in the past 21 years.

Tracks of the 12 major hurricanes that passed within 20 miles of Miami-Dade County from 1926-2025.

But even with that infamous list of storms, the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 keeps its place in history. If any of them were to occur this year, the Great Miami Hurricane would still rank as the most destructive and costly.  Some might wonder why 1992's Andrew doesn't top that list... it was very small and the extreme winds in the eyewall missed downtown Miami. The 1926 hurricane was also extremely intense, but much larger and the eyewall passed directly over Miami. In 2026, the impact from an identical hurricane would be unimaginable and unsurpassed.

Please peruse this webpage I created to showcase the new surface wind maps, and reach out to me with any questions you may have:

Great Miami Hurricane of 1926

One of the surface wind field maps available at https://bmcnoldy.earth.miami.edu/tropics/miami26/. Several storm parameters needed to be carefully estimated using what data are available. The decay of wind speed over land is intentionally smoothed, and modern urban areas in the land use dataset are handled to approximate what it may have been one century ago. 

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