2004 Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne Track and Wind Speed

The 2004 Atlantic hurricane season deeply affected the state of Florida. Four major hurricanes hit Florida within one and one-half months. This map shows the tracks, timing, wind speeds, and general areas affected by hurricane and tropical storm force winds of the three hurricanes that hit the southern part of the state.

The first, Hurricane Charley, was a fast-moving category 4 storm that changed direction after leaving Cuba at 2:00 a.m., hit the coastline near Fort Myers at 4:00 p.m., and left the state through Daytona Beach at 11:00 p.m. on Friday, August 13. The eye of this storm was small, which created a relatively narrow swath of wind damage along the track.

The second, Hurricane Frances, took a more direct path along the northern Caribbean Islands and came ashore in Stewart, Florida, as a category 2. The eye of this storm was much larger with a larger area of wind damage.

The final hurricane of the 2004 season was a bit of a wanderer. Hurricane Jeanne hit the northern coasts of many of the Caribbean Islands before turning north at the Turks and Caicos islands and appeared to be headed off into the Atlantic. However, it looped around and doubled back to head straight for Florida, again making landfall in Stewart, this time as a category 3. Jeanne and Frances shared the exact same reported location as did Jeanne and Charley. The town nearest to the intersection of all three storms was Bartow.

In response to the concentrated events of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, this map was created to depict the reported track movement and general areas affected by hurricane and tropical storm force winds. Although the distance of hurricane and tropical storm force winds is not equally spread around the eye of a storm, equal distances were used here to show the relative size of each storm as it moved through the state.