A weak tropical depression moved off the coast of Africa on the morning of September 18th. It moved westward through the tropical Atlantic. Further development finally commenced by the afternoon of the
24th, when the system had become a tropical storm several hundred miles east of Martinique. Slowing down its westward progression, strengthening continued, and Inez developed into a hurricane by the morning of the 26th.

Inez moved west-northwest, directly over Guadeloupe as a category 3 hurricane and was a storm of small diameter with hurricane force winds only extending 50 miles from the center. Intensification resumed across the eastern Caribbean, where the system reached category 5 status about 160 miles southwest of San Juan. Striking the Barahona Peninsula of the Dominican Republic around noon on the 9th, Inez rapidly weakened. Intensifying rapidly after leaving Hispanola, Inez hit Cuba near Guantanamo City on the morning of the 30th as a category 4 hurricane. Moving along the southern coast of the island for a time, it moved across Central Cuba around the 1st and continued a slow recurvature into the northwest Bahamas.

The high pressure ridge built in across the Gulf of Mexico, and Inez turned to the west-southwest, moving over all the Keys from Key Largo to Key West, and brushed to northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. It briefly turned northwest in the Gulf of Mexico as the ridge weakened, but rising pressures across south Texas turned the system back to the west-southwest to just north of Tampico on the morning of the 10th.The graphics belowshow the storm total rainfall for Inez. Data was provided by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

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On 07SEP95, Hurricane Luis intensified from about 100 kt winds and 940 mb minimum sea-level pressure (MSLP) to 120 kt and 935 mb MSLP as it moved northwestward away from the Lesser Antilles. During the course of the day (UT) an outer concentric eyewall formed surrounding the original eyewall at 50 nmi radius. Early on 08SEP95, the new eyewall became the dominant feature and the maximum winds decreased to about 100 kt again. Natural eyewall cycles such as Luis’ are virtually identical to the expected result of the STORMFURY modification experiments carried out in the 1960s. Two radar composites transmitted in real time from a NOAA research aircraft to forecasters at the OAR show Luis’ well defined outer eyewall surrounding the dissipating partial inner eyewall

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