Hurricane Charley was the third named storm, the second hurricane, and the second major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. Charley lasted from August 9 to August 15, and at its peak intensity it attained 150 mph (240 km/h) winds, making it a strong Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. The storm made landfall in southwestern Florida at maximum strength, thus making it the strongest hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Andrew struck Florida twelve years before, in 1992.

After moving briskly through the Caribbean Sea, Charley crossed Cuba on August 13 as a Category 3 hurricane, causing heavy damage and four deaths. That same day, the hurricane crossed over the Dry Tortugas, just 22 hours after Tropical Storm Bonnie struck northwestern Florida. This was the first time in history that two tropical cyclones struck the same state in a 24-hour time period. Charley was one of two major hurricanes to hit Florida in 2004, and one of four hurricanes to directly affect the state.

A FEW GRAPHIC RELATED IMAGES
(click on image to see full size)

This is the approximate path at the time of landfall.  As you can see by the arrow, the chase team was right in th eyewall's path.	This is a zoom in of the map showing the location of were myself, and some of the other chase team took shelter.

(click on image to see full size)

HURRICANE TRACK

National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track at 5:00pm (EST).  I have overlayed the approx. actual path for comparison.

This is the entire track of Hurricane Charley of it's Tropical cyclone life.  When viewing full size, you can see the rapid accelation to Catagory 4 strength just before landfall.

(click on image to see full size)

THE DOCUMENTARY

The best 90 minutes of before, during, and after the storm you are going to see. Our six-person camera crew will bring you along on a virtual Hurricane storm chase with Hurricane Charley as we position ourselves throughout Punta Gorda. We never stopped shooting video throughout the entire storm as Hurricane Charley destroyed Punta Gorda Florida. (order in the "Store" section of this website to order the last remaining copies of this great DVD)

TV AND NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF DOCUMENTARY

PUNTA GORDA HERALD (November 17th, 2004)