Hurricane Karl was the most destructive tropical cyclone on record to strike the Mexican state of Veracruz. The eleventh tropical storm, sixth hurricane, and fifth and final major hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, Karl formed from an area of low pressure which had formed off of the northern coast Venezuela on September 11. It crossed the Caribbean and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Karl on September 14. The cyclone made landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico as a strong tropical storm, and then rapidly strengthened in the Bay of Campeche before it made landfall near Veracruz, Veracruz, on the central Mexican Gulf coast, as a major hurricane. This marked the first known time that a major hurricane existed in the Bay of Campeche.