It's over, at least for now. Like monsters from the sea, chaos and destruction lashed the Americas seemingly right out of the water over the last six months like never before. Could it have been any worse? We believed in the overly active forecast given early in the year but no one was truly prepared for what Mother Nature would deliver.

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Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale NOAA Media Release on 2005 Tropical Season NHC 2005 Season All About Hurricanes

Powerful images of Americans attacked by nature, removed from their homes and with only the shirts on their backs to call their own, will be stuck in our memories for a long time to come. The painful 2005 Atlantic hurricane season officially ends Wednesday even while a tropical storm still churns in open waters.

Never in the history of hurricane tracking have we experienced a busier, more extraordinary season than we did this year. Since June, a record 26 named tropical storms developed across the Atlantic basin with 13 of them becoming hurricanes, seven of those attaining major status (Category 3 to Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale), with three of six strongest hurricanes ever recorded in history.

"This hurricane season shattered records that have stood for decades—most named storms, most hurricanes and most Category 5 storms. Arguably, it was the most devastating hurricane season the country has experienced in modern times," said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. Never in the history of this country has there been so much property damage from land-falling tropical cyclones.

It all started quickly in June with two weak but notable storms, feeding off of calmer winds and warmer ocean waters. The pace heightened in July as five named cyclones developed -- a new record for the month.

Above-average tropical activity continued right into August with five more storms, two becoming hurricanes, including the catastrophic Katrina.

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	Hurricane season CNN's Rob Marciano reports on the end of this year's stormy season.

By the beginning of September, we'd already seen more than double the normal amount of activity in the Atlantic and Mother Nature showed no signs of slowing down. Six storms, five hurricanes, and one depression formed in the month. Only 1893 had more storms a single September.

The month of October continued the trend of extreme activity with six named storms for the month, tying a record from 1950. The sanctioned list of 21 storm names for 2005 had been exhausted by the end of the month so an alternate list, the Greek Alphabet, was put into use for the first time in history. The season began to wane through November with several benign storms.

Some notable "firsts" in 2005:

		First with 26 named storms (previously: 21 in 1933)
		First with 13 hurricanes (previously: 12 in 1969)
		First with three Category 5 hurricanes (previously: two in 1960 & 1961)
		First with four major hurricanes hitting the U.S. (previous: three in 2004)
		First to use Greek alphabet (since naming began in 1953)

We thought we'd seen true power then the strongest hurricane we've ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, Wilma, was born. Pressures dropped as low as 882 mb in the core of the storm, breaking the old record set by Gilbert with 888 mb.

But, in the end, we'll remember this as the season of Katrina. The monster storm killed at least 1,300 people, the deadliest hurricane since 1928. Hurricane Katrina became the costliest storm since Andrew (1992 - $26.5 billion) with damage estimates reaching beyond $80 billion -- some say realistically closer to $130 billion. We'll never know how many lives the storm directly and, for many, permanently affected. The name Katrina has been retired from future use.

It didn't all just happen by chance. Meteorologists attribute the overly active season to a nearly multi-decade cycle of nature that we believe ebbs and flows every 80 years, putting our oceans in prime conditions for development and giving us a period where frequency and power of these warm-cored storms runs well above what we consider normal. This above-normal activity may last a decade or two before waning.

The Atlantic hurricane season begins in June 2006.

	The named storms
Here's a summary of each named storm of the 2005 season: Arlene: A weak tropical storm formed early in the month; maximum winds 70 mph; 1 death. Bret: A weak tropical storm, made landfall near Veracruz, Mexico, with widespread flooding; maximum winds 40 mph. Cindy: Grew in Yucatan, made landfall just shy of hurricane strength near Grand Isle, La., flooding from southeast Louisiana to Florida; maximum winds 70 mph. Dennis: Born on Independence Day, our first hurricane of the season made initial landfall on southern Cuba's coast, then re-emerged as a growing Category 4 storm, making second landfall as Category 3 on the Florida panhandle; 32 deaths; maximum winds 150 mph. Emily: A quick bloomer, Emily grew to just shy of Category 5 status, making landfall as a Category 4 across the Yucatan then crossed the Gulf with a second landfall as a Category 3 just south of the Texas-Mexico border city of Matamoros; 5 deaths; maximum winds 155 mph. Franklin: A tropical storm that grew and dissipated off the east coast; maximum winds 70 mph. Gert: Forming in the Bay of Campeche in late July, this storm made landfall on the east coast of Mexico as a weak storm with heavy rains on areas flooded just a few weeks prior by Emily; maximum winds 45 mph. Harvey: A weak storm that remained off the east coast, affecting Bermuda; maximum wind 65 mph. Irene: A long-lived, strong Category 2 storm that developed off the coast of Africa then died out at sea; maximum wind 105 mph. Jose: A weak storm formed over the Bay of Campeche, made landfall the same day in Veracruz, Mexico; 1 death; maximum wind 50 mph. Katrina: Horrific storm formed near the Bahamas then attained Category 1 status, swept south Florida then grew to Category 5 status in the gulf on Aug. 28; pressure dropped as low as 902 mb, fourth lowest in history, with a maximum of 175 mph winds before making landfall as a strong Category 4 in southeast Louisiana; second landfall near Louisiana-Mississippi border as a Category 3 storm; remnants swept all the way to New York City days later; death toll unknown. Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. Lee: A weak storm that remained off the east coast; maximum winds 40 mph. Maria: Formed near the Caribbean, storm grew to Category 4 status in four days but a major curve in the storm's track quickly took it to cool waters; 1 death; maximum winds 115 mph. Nate: Developed near Bermuda but remained at sea its entire lifetime; maximum winds 90 mph. Ophelia: Grew to a storm off the space coast of Florida where it meandered for days; briefly a Category 1 on three occasions; eventually accelerated to the northeast and died out; 1 death; maximum winds 85 mph. Philippe: Turned into a weak hurricane, eventually absorbed by another low pressure; maximum winds 80 mph. Rita: Went from Bahamas to a rapidly intensifying storm with flooding rains and a 5-foot storm surge for south Florida; attained Category 2 status by the time it reached the gulf then quickly blossomed up to an intense Category 5 within 24 hours; central pressure down to 897 mb, third lowest in history, before slightly weakening, spreading flooding rains to Katrina-devastated New Orleans, then down to Category 3 at landfall just east of Texas-Louisiana border with damaging storm surge, diminishing to storm status in northwest Louisiana 24 hours later; maximum winds 175 mph. Stan: Forming near Cozumel, became a weak hurricane nearing eastern Mexico with landfall south of Veracruz; maximum winds 80 mph; torrential flooding and landslides caused 785 deaths; maximum winds 80 mph. Tammy: Short lived, weak storm developed off east coast of Florida, made landfall then moved to Alabama with flooding rains; maximum winds 50 mph. Vince: Storm formed in the open Atlantic near Azores where it gained Category 1 hurricane strength; first known tropical cyclone to make landfall in Spain (as a weakening tropical depression); maximum winds 75 mph. Wilma: Developed in Caribbean, became hurricane that 24 hours later attained Category 5 status; very small-eyed storm dropped pressure to 882 mb -- lowest on record in the Atlantic basin in history -- with winds up to 175 mph; made landfall on Yucatan as Category 4, emerging back over the Gulf as Category 2 accelerating towards Florida; second landfall as Category 3 on the southwest Florida coast, crossing the peninsula in five hours then reemerging east of Florida as a Category 3; moved northeast into open Atlantic; 25 deaths; maximum winds 175 mph. Alpha: Formed in late October near Puerto Rico, made landfall in the Dominican Republic before weakening due to large circulation of Wilma; 20 deaths in Hispanola; maximum winds 50 mph. Beta: Developed near Costa Rica, slowly strengthened to Category 1 over three days, then three days later grew to Category 3 then back to Category 2 at landfall in Nicaragua with significant flooding; maximum winds 115 mph. Gamma: Born in the Caribbean, this storm made landfall in Honduras then moved back out to open waters to its demise. Delta: Formed in the middle of the Atlantic, raced eastbound to make landfall on the west coast of Africa. Epsilon: Developed in the wake of Delta in the open Atlantic east of Bermuda, not expected to make landfall.