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10 Years Later: Two Category 5 Atlantic Basin Landfalls for the First and Only Time

At a Glance

Hurricanes Dean and Felix caused mass destruction across the Caribbean in 2007.
Only five hurricane seasons have had multiple Category 5 hurricanes.
2007 is the only season on record to have two landfalling Category 5 hurricanes.

A pair of monster Category 5 hurricanes made landfall 10 years ago this summer – a pounding the Atlantic has not seen since.

Two Category 5 hurricanes in one season is rare enough, but to have two hurricanes make landfall at Category 5 intensity hasn't happened since at least 1920 in the Atlantic.

Only four prior hurricane seasons – 1932, 1933, 1961 and 2005 – had more than one Category 5 hurricane. The 2005 season had four hurricanes with winds exceeding 156 mph, a record for the basin.

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The pair, hurricanes Dean and Felix, shook the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season awake after a relatively slow start.

Tracks and landfall points of two Category 5 hurricanes in 2007.

Hurricane Dean, August 2007

Dean formed as a tropical depression close to the Cabo Verde Islands off the coast of Africa. The system gradually intensified as it moved westward into and eventually through the Caribbean as a major hurricane.

In the Caribbean, Dean killed 14 people in Haiti, 3 in Jamaica, 2 in Dominica and 1 in St. Lucia, mainly from rainfall in flood-prone locations, according to the National Hurricane Center. Significant losses were reported in the banana and fishing industries on several islands, including the complete loss of banana crops in Martinique.

About 8,800 homes were either destroyed or severely damaged as the eyewall of Hurricane Dean pummelled Martinique.

After a short intensification hiatus, the major hurricane intensified into a strong Category 5 hurricane prior to landfall near Majahual, Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula. Maximum sustained winds were clocked at 175 mph near landfall early on the morning of Aug. 21, 2007.

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Thankfully, Dean made landfall in a less-populated area of the Yucatan, and thus casualties there were limited. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed where Dean made landfall in Majahual, and the nearby cruise port of Costa Maya was severely damaged and subsequently closed.

The hurricane steamrolled across the Yucatan without losing hurricane status and went on to strike Mexico's east coast as a Category 2 with winds of 100 mph.

Satellite imagery of Hurricane Dean on Aug. 20, 2007, the day before landfall on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
(NASA)

Hurricane Felix, September 2007

Hurricane Felix was a strengthening Caribbean cruiser that roared just north of the ABC islands – Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao – before crashing ashore in northern Nicaragua in early September 2007.

At least 130 people were killed in Nicaragua and Honduras, according to the National Hurricane Center. Felix's wind and storm surge caused severe structural damage to thousands of homes and other structures along the Nicaraguan coast, and inland flooding triggered by heavy rain caused additional damage.

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This view of Hurricane Felix was taken from the International Space Station on Sept. 3, 2007.
(NASA)

Maximum sustained winds in the second Category 5 reached 175 mph when the hurricane was located a couple hundred miles south of Kingston, Jamaica.

Felix made landfall near Punta Gorda, Nicaragua, with winds of 160 mph in the early-morning hours of Sept. 4.

Due to the immense damage and death tolls from both storms, the names "Dean" and "Felix" were retired and will never be used in the Atlantic Basin again.