In the same article, the Weather Bureau speculated that the storm could have originated closer to Mexico or Honduras from a long trough of low pressure, but also noted that the contemporaneous wind observations along the Gulf Coast could lend credence to a sudden emergence of the hurricane in the gulf as late as the morning of October 1. In the official Atlantic hurricane database sanctioned by the World Meteorological Organization, the storm is listed as beginning on September 27 in the western Caribbean Sea northeast of the border between Nicaragua and Honduras. The nascent system strengthened into a hurricane the next day and on September 29 and reached the equivalent of a low-end Category 2 hurricane intensity on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale with estimated maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (160 km/h). Tracking towards the northwest, the storm then traversed the northeastern parts of the Yucatan Peninsula and weakened slightly before moving into the Gulf of Mexico, where it restrengthened and curved towards the north and later northeast. Despite the prior hurricane intensity, only after October 1when rain from the storm was already moving onshore the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexicodid weather observations clearly indicate that a hurricane existed. The Weather Bureau had been unaware of the storm, predicting southeasterly winds and fair conditions following "light showers" on the Gulf coast for the night of October 1. In reviewing and revising the tracks of historical storms maintained by the National Climatic Center, meteorologist José Fernández-Partagás found that the storm's listed positions prior to October 1 could not be reviewed due to a "lack of suitable information" and made no changes to the preexisting track in the database. A new analysis conducted by meteorologist Michael Chenoweth of Atlantic tropical cyclones in the late 19th century, published in the Journal of Climate in 2014, lists the storm as having originated in the Bay of Campeche on September 27, after which the storm tracked northeast and bypassed the Yucatan Peninsula before entering the north-central Gulf of Mexico where the presence of the storm was first clearly resolved. By October 1, the storm was already a strong hurricane; in the official Atlantic hurricane database the storm is listed as beginning the day as the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane. Further intensification ensued, and the storm reached its peak intensity early on October 2 with maximum sustained winds of 130