August 29, Laura degenerated into a remnant low over Kentucky, before being absorbed into another extratropical storm near the East Coast of the U.S. shortly afterward. Overall, Laura caused more than $23.3 billion in damage and 81 deaths. Areas that were affected by Laura, namely the Gulf Coast, were affected again six weeks later by Hurricane Delta. Meteorological history On August 16, 2020, a tropical wave along the eastern end of a monsoon trough emerged off the west coast of Africa over the Atlantic Ocean. At this time, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted the possibility of tropical cyclogenesis over the next five days as environmental conditions gradually became more favorable for development. The system produced disorganized convection over a broad area and steadily consolidated. A surface low accompanied by organizing banding features coalesced about west-southwest of the Cape Verde islands. By 03:00 UTC on August 20, the low and accompanying convection became sufficiently organized to be classified as a tropical depression, the thirteenth of the season, about east-southeast of the Leeward Islands. The depression moved briskly west-northwest in response to the Bermuda High to the north, a high that would steer the system throughout its lifetime. After struggling to intensify for over a day, the depression center reformed and an increase an organization and the presence of tropical storm-force winds prompted an upgrade to tropical storm status and storm was named Laura. This marked the earliest classification of a season's twelfth named storm since reliable records began in 1851, surpassing the previous record set by Hurricane Luis, on August 28, 1995. Moderate wind shear hampered further development through August 22, displacing the bulk of convection east of the surface circulation. Early on August 22, Laura traversed the Virgin Islands and sideswiped Puerto Rico to the south before making landfall in the southeastern Dominican Republic with maximum sustained winds of early on August 23. Despite interacting with the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola, the overall structure of Laura actually improved with little intensity loss. Laura subsequently traversed Haiti and emerged over the Windward Passage. Once back over water, the storm intensified some and made a brief landfall around 00:00 UTC on August 24 in Santiago de Cuba Province, Cuba, with winds of before emerging over the Caribbean along Cuba's southern coast. Laura's structure briefly degraded on August 24 before it reorganized and traversed Pinar del Río Province in western Cuba, early