Description

The 1875 Indianola hurricane brought a devastating and deadly storm surge to the coast of Texas. The third known system of the 1875 Atlantic hurricane season, the storm was first considered a tropical cyclone while located east of the Lesser Antilles on September 8. After passing through the Windward Islands and entering the Caribbean Sea, the cyclone gradually began to move more northwestward and brushed the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti late on September 12. On the following day, the storm made a few landfalls on the southern coast of Cuba before moving inland over Sancti Spíritus Province. The system emerged into the Gulf of Mexico near Havana and briefly weakened to a tropical storm. Thereafter, the storm slowly re-intensified and gradually turned westward. On September 16, the hurricane peaked as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 115 mph (185 km/h). Later that day, the hurricane made landfall near Indianola, Texas. The storm quickly weakened and turned northeastward, before dissipating over Mississippi on September 18.