This compact yet powerful hurricane travelled through the Caribbean Sea and later hit Florida before moving offshore Georgia into the Carolinas, killing 156 people and causing roughly $187 million in damage.

[2] The hurricane continued to strengthen as it moved through the Caribbean Sea and reached its peak intensity of 150 mph (240 km/h) on August 23 while south of the Dominican Republic.

Cleo quickly intensified to a 110 mph (180 km/h) Category 2 hurricane before hitting the Miami, Florida area on August 27.

After bringing heavy rain through the area, Cleo exited into the Atlantic Ocean near Norfolk, Virginia,[5] and quickly intensified to a tropical storm again on September 1.

[18] The outer bands of Cleo produced peak sustained winds of 52 mph (84 km/h) at Point Tuna, Puerto Rico.

While trying to exit the storm, the starboard tip tank and larger portion of wing were torn away by extreme down draft turbulence.

[19] Cleo led to the wettest known 24‑hour period recorded for any site within the Dominican Republic for any month, with 19.99 inches (508 mm) falling at Polo.

Boxer arrived off the coast of Hispaniola on August 29 to provide medical aid and evacuation services to those in the worst impacted areas of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Major damage was constrained to a 20–35 miles (32–56 km) wide strip from Miami to Melbourne,[21] in the form of broken glass, interior flooding, uprooted trees, overturned aircraft, power failures, and agriculture.

[25] Cleo caused the Fort Lauderdale News, one of South Florida's biggest newspapers, to miss publishing, the only time that happened in its history.

[27] Heavy rains spread up along the Georgia coast into the Carolinas and southern Virginia in association with the weakening tropical storm.

Interaction with a frontal boundary to its north led to significant rains across extreme southeast Virginia to the left of its track exceeding 14 inches (360 mm) in the Norfolk metropolitan area.

[29][30] After surviving Cleo's wrath in the Bahamas, a survivor came up with the idea of a floating hospital designed to help out areas after a catastrophe.

A husband-wife pair who survived Cleo bought a retired luxury liner for such a purpose 14 years later, and it was put into service in 1982.

The result of the creation of this canal was an increase in salinity of nearly fivefold from pre-canal levels, which decimated aquatic vegetation in Currituck Sound by 1998.