Hurricane Dean was the most powerful and destructive tropical cyclone of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season. It ties with Hurricane Mitch for the tenth most intense Atlantic hurricane by atmospheric pressure. Additionally, it made the fifth most intense landfall in the basin by central pressure. A Cape Verde hurricane that formed on August 13, 2007, Dean took a west-northwest path from the eastern Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lucia Channel and into the Caribbean Sea. It strengthened into a major hurricane, reaching Category 5 status on the Saffir–Simpson scale before passing just south of Jamaica on August 20. The storm made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula on August 21 at peak intensity. It crossed the peninsula and emerged into the Bay of Campeche weakened, but still remained a hurricane. It strengthened briefly before making a second landfall near Tecolutla in the Mexican state of Veracruz on August 22. Dean drifted to the northwest, weakening into a remnant low which dissipated uneventfully over the southwestern United States.