Hurricane Florence was a strong, late season hurricane that remained out over the open waters of the Central Atlantic for nearly a week, before being absorbed into a large extratropical cyclone. With peak winds of 110 mph (175 km/h) and a minimum pressure of 972 mbar (hPa; 28.71 inHg), Florence was the strongest storm of the 1994 Atlantic hurricane season. Florence developed out of an area of low pressure associated with a stalled frontal system located 1,150 mi (1,850 km) east-southeast of Bermuda in late October. The system gradually became better organized and was classified a subtropical depression on November 2. The storm intensified into a subtropical storm shortly thereafter before weakening into a tropical depression on the next day.