Monday, Sept. 16, marks four years since Hurricane Sally made landfall in Alabama. Monday also marks the 20th anniversary of another hurricane to strike Alabama — Category 3 Ivan.
The two storms hit nearly the same area on the same day 16 years apart. Alabama has not had another direct hurricane strike since Sally.
Sally was a Category 2 hurricane with top winds of 105 mph when made landfall at 5 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2020, at Gulf Shores, according to the National Weather Service in Mobile.
Sally made an agonizingly slow landfall, moving only 5 mph as it came onshore, which only exacerbated damage from wind and flooding.
Sally is blamed for the deaths of six people, according to the weather service. Three died as a direct result of the storm, and three others died in the aftermath.
Sally caused significant wind and flood damage in coastal Alabama and well inland, according to the weather service.
Sally dumped 15 to 30 inches of rain across Baldwin County and into the Florida Panhandle. Inland areas in Alabama got 7 to 15 inches.
Sally was a slow-moving storm and had time to drop a lot of rain across Alabama and Florida.NWS
That caused “thousands” of water rescues, according to the weather service, and major flash fooding, with significant road closures.
Sally’s landfall was the first direct Alabama hurricane landfall since Hurricane Ivan hit 16 years to the day earlier.
HURRICANE IVAN
Hurricane Ivan made landfall early on Sept. 16, 2004, as a Category 3 hurricane. Here’s the radar image from around the time of landfall.NWS
Ivan was a Category 3 storm with 120 mph sustained winds when it made landfall just west of Gulf Shores at 1:50 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2004.
The weather service said Ivan “may rival the magnitude of damage and destruction caused by the Hurricane of 1926, which ravaged the counties east of Mobile Bay.”
Ivan is blamed for eight deaths, all in the Florida Panhandle, according to the weather service.
Ivan’s storm surge was particularly devastating. Areas along the Florida Panhandle registered 10 to 15 feet of storm surge.
The center of Ivan passed east of Mobile, sparing that area from what could have been 16 to 18 feet of surge, according to the weather service.
Rain from Ivan peaked with over 15 inches in Pensacola, Fla. Areas in Alabama such as Mobile and Andalusia had more than 10 inches of rain.
See more from the weather service about Sally here.
Learn more about Hurricane Ivan here.
