High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Hurricane Ethel was both one of the fastest intensifying and weakening storms on record, reaching Category 5 status 18 hours after being declared a tropical storm and weakening from that intensity to a tropical storm in roughly 12 hours. Ethel formed in the Gulf of Mexico on the morning of September 14, 1960, rapidly intensified into a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane, and weakened back to a tropical storm before making landfall near Biloxi, Mississippi, the next evening. Because of the rapid weakening, the storm caused little damage and no deaths.