page_title: Hurricane Camille
section_title: Comparisons to Hurricane Katrina
hierarchical_section_title: Hurricane Camille / Comparisons to Hurricane Katrina
caption_attribution_description: Comparison of Hurricanes Camille and Katrina near landfall along the Louisiana coast.
context_page_description: Hurricane Camille was the second most intense tropical cyclone on record to strike the United States. The most intense storm of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season, Camille originated as a tropical depression on August 14, south of Cuba, from a long-tracked tropical wave. Located in a favorable environment for strengthening, the storm quickly intensified into a Category 2 hurricane before striking the western part of Cuba on August 15. Emerging into the Gulf of Mexico, Camille underwent another period of rapid intensification and became a Category 5 hurricane the next day as it moved northward towards the Louisiana–Mississippi region. Despite weakening slightly on August 17, the hurricane quickly re-intensified back into a Category 5 hurricane before it made landfall a half-hour before midnight in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. At peak intensity, the hurricane had a minimum pressure of 900 mbar. This was the second-lowest pressure recorded for a U.S. landfall, and is one of just four hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S at Category 5 status. Only the 1935 Labor Day hurricane had a lower pressure at landfall.
context_section_description: Although Hurricane Camille and Hurricane Katrina took different paths, they both reached the same section of the coast of Mississippi with similar destructive effects. Camille intensified more rapidly than Katrina, and unlike Katrina, Camille re-intensified a second time and maintained status as a Category 5 hurricane until landfall. Both hurricanes shared the common aspect of undergoing periods of rapid intensification. The size of Camille's radius of maximum wind was less than one-third that of Katrina, more similar to the intense but small Hurricane Andrew. Also unlike Katrina, Camille caused little damage in New Orleans, Louisiana, though Camille itself just barely missed the city. The area of hurricane-force winds within Camille was just over two-thirds the size of Hurricane Katrina. Both storms were moving at a similar forward motion at the time of landfall. Although Camille's wind speed at landfall was higher, Katrina's storm surge exceeded Camille's storm surge at all known locations due to its greater size. Both hurricanes' names were retired.
caption: Comparison of Hurricanes Camille (left) and Katrina on satellite imagery
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