A look back at the devastating Great Miami Hurricane, 100 years later » Yale Climate Connections

by Jeff Masters, Yale Climate Connections
September 17, 2026

Man has never learned why the Almighty sees fit to destroy cities.
— Editorial, Miami Tribune, September 19, 1926

One hundred years ago today, the 300,000 residents of South Florida awoke to beautiful sunshine and a light breeze off the Atlantic. That morning, the Miami Herald carried a four-inch story on page one titled “Hurricane Reported.” However, the editors added that the storm was not expected to hit Florida. The telltale clouds that often portend an approaching hurricane were absent, and the Bahama Islands blocked the ocean swells that preceded the storm’s arrival.

By 8 p.m., the winds were only 19 mph (32 km/h), and a falling barometer was the only sign that a storm was on the way. A hurricane warning wasn’t issued until 11:30 p.m., and it wasn’t until after midnight that the unsuspecting population of Miami awoke to howling winds and crashing glass and realized that a hurricane was upon them.

At 6:45 a.m. on September 18, the center of the mighty Category 4 hurricane made landfall over the southern suburbs of Miami, about 15 miles (25 km) south of downtown. At landfall, the hurricane had sustained winds of 145 mph (235 km/h) and a central pressure of 930 mb.

The Great Hurricane was indeed great in size: Its eye stretched 30 to 40 miles wide. According to an analysis by hurricane scientist Brian McNoldy based on limited data, the storm’s powerful winds encompassed a huge area: Sustained hurricane-force winds occurred along nearly 150 miles (240 km) of the coast, from the middle Florida Keys to St. Lucie County well north of West Palm Beach. For comparison, the hurricane-force winds of Cat 5 Hurricane Andrew of 1992 spanned just 58 miles (93 km) at landfall in South Florida, while 2005 Hurricane Katrina’s spanned about 185 miles (300 km) at landfall in Mississippi and Louisiana.

The center of the hurricane reached the coast at high tide, bringing a storm tide that was about two feet higher than if the storm had hit at low tide. The large size of the 1926 hurricane enabled it to build the largest storm surge ever recorded in Miami Beach.

In her introduction to a 1986 reissue of the 1926 book by L. F. Reardon, “The Florida Hurricane & Disaster,” Miami historian Arva Moore Parks describes what happened next (note that the current National Weather Service was known as the U.S. Weather Bureau until 1970).

Weather Bureau chief Richard W. Gray holed up in his office in what is now the Amerifirst Building on N.E. First Street and First Avenue, watching the pressure fall.
It dropped so rapidly that the barograph pen had to be reset several times when it ran off the page. At 11:30 p.m., he gamely raised the red and black hurricane flags atop the building. But the flags went unnoticed. The hurricane was already whirling through town.

By then, there was neither time nor place to take refuge. The awesome roar of the wind, crashing of glass and banging of flying objects startled the townspeople. The wind shredded Miami’s popular and colorful canvas awnings into countless flapping strips. Some were turned into wind-filled spinnakers that lifted the metal frames from the walls and turned them into battering rams.

For the next six and a half hours, the storm ravaged Miami. Then, at 6:10 a.m., the wind died suddenly. A weary populace breathed a sigh of relief, said a prayer and poured out into the littered streets. Richard Gray ran out into the street screaming, “Seek cover, the storm’s not over – it’s not over!” Most of the people thought he was daft. But Gray was right. The calm was only the eye of the hurricane, and at 6:45, the “second storm” hit – even worse than the “first storm.” The wind picked up as suddenly as it stopped – this time from the opposite direction. Many were trapped out in the storm and lost their lives.

Within an hour, the anemometer atop Miami Beach’s Alison Hospital clocked 128 mile per hour winds and blew away. (Gray estimated gusts to 150 miles per hour.) Then came the storm tides. The ocean – eight to nine feet high – washed completely across Miami Beach and pushed itself all the way to Miami. Boats were deposited two blocks from the bay. On the Miami River, an 11-foot wall of water (a bore) pushed upstream, lifting boats that had sought safe harbor and dashing them to bits.

By noon, the storm had moved to Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale and Moore Haven on Lake Okeechobee, but it was all over in Miami. (Before it blew itself out near Biloxi, Mississippi, Pensacola would also feel its fury.)

The toll was enormous, and those 12 hours changed the course of Miami’s entire history. The Florida East Coast railroad offered free passage to those who wanted to leave, and many took the railroad up on its offer. Others lost everything they owned, including family and friends. The nation and the world responded. The Cuban people were particularly generous.

Most of the city’s residents had only recently moved to the booming city and had neither experienced a hurricane nor knew much about them. The storm killed 220 in southeastern Florida and another 150 around the shores of Lake Okeechobee, where a storm surge overwhelmed the lake’s dikes. In total, over 6,000 people were injured, and tens of thousands of people were made homeless.

Thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed; damage was estimated at $105 million ($2 billion in 2026 USD). A profound economic downturn resulted, with thousands of residents moving out of the city, plunging Miami into what became the Great Depression three years ahead of the rest of the nation.

According to McNoldy’s blog post on the hurricane, the Great Miami Hurricane has special significance to the University of Miami: “The university was established in 1925, and construction on the campus began in early 1926. The new buildings suffered extensive damage, but amazingly, the university still opened for classes in October 1926.” Supposedly, the 1927 football team held a team meeting to select a team name and picked “Hurricanes,” hoping they would sweep away opponents just as the Great Miami Hurricane did.

Comparison with Hurricane Andrew of 1992

Even the impact of Category 5 Hurricane Andrew of 1992 in South Florida can’t compare to that of the 1926 hurricane. Andrew was very small, and the extreme eyewall winds missed downtown Miami. McNoldy has estimated that the 1926 hurricane packed over four times more energy than Andrew at landfall. Andrew killed 61 and did $62 billion in damage (2026 USD).

What would happen if the 1926 hurricane hit Miami today?

There is no doubt that a repeat of the 1926 hurricane would be a top-10 costliest hurricane if it occurred today, but would it be the most expensive? I’ll have a detailed analysis of this complex topic in my next post.

Bob Henson and Irene Sans contributed to this post.

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