Yucatán Channel in the context of "Gulf of Mexico"

The Yucatán Peninsula (/ˌjuːkəˈtɑːn, -ˈtæn/ YOO-kə-TA(H)N, UK also /ˌjʊk-/ YUU-; Spanish: Península de Yucatán [peˈninsula ðe ʝukaˈtan]) is a large peninsula in southeast Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west of the peninsula from the Caribbean Sea to the east. The Yucatán Channel, between the northeastern corner of the peninsula and Cuba, connects the two bodies of water.

The peninsula is approximately 181,000 km (70,000 sq mi) in area. It has low relief and is almost entirely composed of porous limestone.

The Florida Current is a thermal ocean current that flows from the Straits of Florida around the Florida Peninsula and along the southeastern coast of the United States before joining the Gulf Stream Current near Cape Hatteras. Its contributing currents are the Loop Current and the Antilles Current. The current was discovered by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513.

The Florida Current results from the movement of water pushed from the Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea by the rotation of the Earth (which exerts a greater force at the equator). The water piles up along Central America and flows northward through the Yucatán Channel into the Gulf of Mexico. The water is heated in the Gulf and forced out through the Florida Straits, between the Florida Keys in Hawk Channel and Cuba and flows northward along the east coast of the United States. The Florida Current is often referred to imprecisely as the Gulf Stream. In fact, the Florida Current joins the Gulf Stream off the east coast of Florida.

Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea. It comprises an archipelago of islands centred upon the geographic coordinates 21°3N, 80°00W. Cuba is the principal island, surrounded by four main archipelagos: the Colorados, the Sabana-Camagüey, the Jardines de la Reina and the Canarreos. Cuba's area is 110,860 km (42,800 sq mi) with a land area of 109,820 km (42,400 sq mi) according to the CIA, which makes it the eighth-largest island country in the world. The main island (Cuba) has 5,746 km (3,570 mi) of coastline and 28.5 km (17.7 mi) of land borders—all figures including the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Its official area is 109,884 km (42,426 sq mi).

Cuba lies west of the North Atlantic Ocean, east of the Gulf of Mexico, south of the Straits of Florida, northwest of the Windward Passage, and northeast of the Yucatán Channel. The main island (Cuba), at 104,338 km (40,285 sq mi), makes up most of the land area and is the 17th-largest island in the world by land area.

Cozumel (Spanish pronunciation: [kosuˈmel]; Yucatec Maya: Kùutsmil) is an island and municipality in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen. It is separated from the mainland by the Cozumel Channel and is close to the Yucatán Channel. The municipality is part of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

In 2023, Cozumel was designated a Pueblo Mágico by the Mexican government, recognizing its cultural and historical importance.

Hurricane Nate was a deadly, fast moving and destructive tropical cyclone which was the costliest natural disaster in Costa Rican history. An unusually fast-moving tropical cyclone, it caused severe flooding in Central America, leading to widespread destruction and casualties, during early October 2017, before making landfall on the US Gulf Coast. The fourteenth named storm and ninth hurricane of the extremely active 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, Nate originated from a broad area of low pressure over the southwestern Caribbean on October 3. The disturbance moved northwest, organizing into a tropical depression the next day and attaining tropical storm intensity early on October 5. The storm made landfall in Nicaragua that same day and continued into Honduras with little change in strength. Nate began steady intensification over the warm waters of the northwestern Caribbean Sea shortly thereafter. It attained hurricane strength while moving through the Yucatán Channel early on October 7, attaining peak winds of 90 mph (150 km/h) in the central Gulf of Mexico later that day. Early on the next day, Nate made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana. After crossing the marshland of the Mississippi Delta, it made its second U.S. landfall near Biloxi, Mississippi early on October 8, causing a storm surge to flood the ground floors of coastal casinos and buildings, as well as causing rip currents, hurricane-force winds, and beach erosion.

Moving northwestward at 29 mph (47 km/h), Nate was the fastest-moving tropical system ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. It is also the fourth Atlantic hurricane of 2017 to have made landfall in the United States or one of its territories; such a quartet of landfalls has not occurred since 2005. In addition, Nate was the first tropical cyclone to move ashore in the state of Mississippi since Hurricane Katrina.