PART VI: CONCLUSION 



18. Hurricane Kate was only the fourth November hurricane to landfall 

 in the United States this century and the first since the 30 October - 



5 November hurricane of 1935. During transit through the Gulf of Mexico, Kate 

 attained Category 3 on the Saf fir-Simpson scale which ranges from 1 (least 

 intense) to 5 (most intense). The surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which 

 had undergone seasonal cooling prior to Kate's transit, caused the hurricane 

 to weaken during the 24 hr before making landfall near Mexico Beach, Fla. At 

 its peak Kate was a medium-sized hurricane with winds in excess of 55 mph 

 extending over 100 miles in the east and north quadrants and gale force winds 

 extending 100 miles in the west and south quadrants. 



19. Finally, the area of landfall had experienced hurricane effects 

 only 2 months earlier during Hurricane Elena. In some instances, the 

 evaluation of high-water marks was hampered because of the difficulty in 

 determining if marks had predated Kate. Moreover, along some beach areas, 

 damage due to Elena was severe enough that morphological changes due to Kate 

 were indiscernible or absent. For these reasons, gage data were sometimes 

 extrapolated to greater distances than otherwise would have been necessary. 



20. A series of contour maps showing the high-water marks from Panama 

 City Beach to St. Marks, Florida, is presented in Appendix A. 



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