The
1928 Fort Pierce hurricane devastated areas of
Florida and the
Southeastern United States in August 1928. The first
tropical cyclone and hurricane of the
annual hurricane season, the storm developed from a
tropical wave first identified on August 3, 1928, north of the
Virgin Islands. Slowly intensifying as it moved west-northwest, the system paralleled the
Greater Antilles throughout much of its early existence. On August 5, the tropical storm strengthened to the equivalent of a
Category 1 hurricane, while positioned over
The Bahamas. The hurricane continued to intensify, and after reaching
Category 2 hurricane strength, attained its peak intensity on August 7 with winds of 105 mph (165 km/h) and a minimum
barometric pressure of 971 mbar (hPa; 28.70 inHg). Shortly after, the hurricane made
landfall as a slightly weaker storm just southeast of
Fort Pierce, Florida at 0700 UTC on August 8. Weakening as it moved across the
Florida peninsula over the course of the next day, the storm briefly moved over the
Gulf of Mexico before recurving northwards. Thus, it made a second landfall on the
Florida Panhandle on August 10 as a tropical storm. Once inland, the system continued to weaken, degenerating to tropical depression strength before transitioning into an
extratropical storm later that day. The extratropical remnants progressed outwards into the
Atlantic Ocean before entirely dissipating by August 14.