While passing across Florida, Katrina weakened to a tropical storm. However, the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico allowed it to rapidly intensify to the sixth strongest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history. Afterwards, Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana, and once more near the Mississippi/Louisiana border. Katrina did not stop going northward through the central United States and finally dissipated near the Great Lakes, where it was absorbed by a cold front.