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Hurricane Danny Recap

The National Hurricane Center issued its final advisory for Danny at 11 a.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 24, 2015, stating that there was no longer a closed circulation center based on Hurricane Hunter data. Danny was moving into the Leeward Islands at the time the final advisory was issued.

Danny formed on Aug. 18, 2015 as Tropical Depression Four and strengthened into a tropical storm later that day.

Danny then became a hurricane on Aug. 20, and peaked as a Category 3 with maximum sustained winds up to 115 mph on the afternoon of Aug. 21, 2015. This made Danny the first major hurricane of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season.

The historical track for Hurricane Danny. — Danny's track history Aug. 18-24, 2015.

A "wall of wind shear" near the Caribbean weakened Danny quickly Aug. 22-24, 2015. Wind shear can blow convection (shower and t-storm activity) away from the center of a tropical cyclone. If strong enough, it can rip apart existing tropical cyclones like we saw with Danny. In addition, those west to southwest winds aloft transported more dry air into the circulation of Danny. This dry air is also stable, meaning it suppresses upward vertical columns of air needed to maintain or form new thunderstorms. All of this led to Danny's demise.

(MORE: Expert Analysis | Hurricane Central)

Danny did bring some gusty winds and rain to the Leeward Islands on Aug. 24, but overall impacts were minimal. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands saw some rain from Danny's remnants on Aug. 25.

On the afternoon of Aug. 21, a NOAA research plane sent back near real-time radar images from a hurricane for the first time.

Incidentally, while small, Danny wasn't the smallest tropical cyclone on record. According to the NOAA's Hurricane Research Division, Tropical Storm Marco in 2008 had gale-force winds extending only 12 miles from the center. Danny's tropical storm-force winds extended up to an estimated 60 miles from the center on Aug. 21.

Danny became only the fourth named storm to become a hurricane in the strip of the Atlantic Ocean from off west Africa to the Lesser Antilles since the start of the 2011 season. Gonzalo (2014), Humberto (2013) and Katia (2011) were the only others to do so in that stretch of over four seasons.

Danny was the first hurricane to strengthen to Category 3 intensity in that Lesser Antilles to west Africa strip of ocean since 2010's Julia.

Senior meteorologists Nick Wiltgen and Jonathan Erdman and meteorologists Chris Dolce and Quincy Vagell contributed to this report.