Hurricane Beta

Caribbean Sea–Central America, October 26–30, 2005 

A record-setting tropical cyclone of many degrees, Hurricane Beta was the first North Atlantic tropical system to be given a “B” identifier from the Greek alphabet. It was the 23rd named tropical system—and the 14th mature-stage hurricane—to develop during the historic 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season. It also, on October 30, 2005, became one of a handful of tropical systems to make a direct landfall on the eastern coast of Nicaragua. A late-season tropical cyclone, Beta was born on October 27, 2005, from a tropical depression that had lingered in the southwestern Caribbean Sea for several days before intensifying.

Moving to the north, and then abruptly to the northeast, the system now a tropical storm with a central pressure of 29.20 inches (989 mb) deepened into a Category 1 hurricane on October 29, while still located less than 100 miles (161 km) off Central America’s famed “Mosquito Coast.” Between the mid-morning hours of August 29 and the early morning hours of August 30, Beta’s central barometric pressure slipped from 29.14 inches (987 mb) to 28.34 inches (960 mb), boasting its sustained wind speeds from 75 MPH (121 km/h) to 115 MPH (185 km/h) in just over a 24-hour period. On October 30, as Beta’s gusts were clocked at nearly 140 MPH (225 km/h), it became the seventh major hurricane to develop during the 2005 hurricane season. Fortunately for those interests along the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan coastlines, Beta began to weaken as it turned due west, and then southwestward, and was of powerful Category 2 intensity as it came ashore in central Nicaragua, near the small coastal town of Sandy Bay, on October 30, 2005. 

A central pressure at landfall of 28.49 inches (965 mb) produced sustained wind speeds of 109 MPH (175 km/h), which uprooted trees, sank small watercraft, and caused extensive structural damage to small buildings and harbor facilities. A slow-moving hurricane, Beta’s heavy rains caused several flash flood conditions in Nicaragua and Honduras. Dozens of people were injured on the offshore island of Providencia, while several injuries in Honduras and Nicaragua were also reported. Quickly downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved inland over Nicaragua, by October 30 Beta had dissipated. While Hurricane Beta was a powerful hurricane at landfall, local emergency management authorities attributed the lack of deaths to a combination of preparedness measures, most important among them the many evacuations that preceded the storm’s landfall, and the fact that the system came ashore in a sparsely inhabited section of the coastline.

Because the identifier Beta is only used when the standard A-W naming list for a particular North Atlantic season is exhausted, it remains in use on the Greek alphabet tropical cyclone naming list.