Opal was the 9th hurricane of the highly active 1995 Atlantic hurricane season. Opal was the strongest hurricane of the 1995 Atlantic hurricane season. It crossed the Yucatán Peninsula while still a tropical depression from September 27, then strengthened northward in the Gulf, becoming the most powerful [[Category 4]] Atlantic hurricane before making a second landfall, October 4, in the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola as a 125-mph (201-km/h) hurricane. Opal devastated the Pensacola/Panhandle area with a 15-ft (5-m) storm surge and travelled up the entire state of Alabama, becoming a tropical storm in Tennessee. Opal also caused heavy damage in the mid-Atlantic states before dissipating.