A broad area of low-pressure associated with a tropical wave crossed Dakar, Africa on
August 30th.  A surface low was noted south of the Cape Verde Islands on the 31st.  Despite
the well-defined low level circulation, deep convection was minimal.  By the morning of the 3rd,
Hortense had enough thunderstorm activity to be considered a tropical depression.  The system
moved westward on the southern periphey of a warm core ridge.  Development was very slow,
and the depression became a tropical storm as it entered the Caribbean Sea late on the 6th.

Hortense moved across Guadeloupe and turned northwest towards Puerto Rico.  It became
a hurricane on the night of the 8th before making landfall.  After passing by the Greater Antilles,
the hurricane strengthened to category 4 intensity on the evening of the 12th.  A trough over the
Eastern United States swept the cyclone northward.  The system moved across eastern Nova
Scotia as a weak hurricane on the 15th and became a nontropical low while moving south of
Newfoundland the next day.  The storm total rainfall maps below were constructed using data
provided by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC.