Hurricane Ike (September 1-14, 2008) was the third most destructive hurricane to ever make landfall in the United States. It was the ninth named storm, fifth hurricane and third major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. It was a Cape Verde-type hurricane, as it started as a tropical disturbance off the coast of Africa near the end of August, then tracked south of Cape Verde and slowly developed. On September 1, 2008, it became a tropical storm west of the Cape Verde islands. By the early morning hours of September 4, Ike was a Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (230 km/h) and a pressure of 935 mbar (27.61 inHg). That made it the most intense storm in the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. Ike made its final landfall east of Galveston, Texas, United States as a Category 2 hurricane on September 13, 2008 at 2:10 a.m. CDT.

Ike was blamed for at least 195 deaths. Of these, 74 were in Haiti, which was already trying to recover from the impact of three storms earlier that year: Fay, Gustav, and Hanna. In the United States, 112 people were killed, and 34 are still missing. Damages from Ike in US coastal and inland areas are estimated at $24 billion (2008 USD), with additional damage of $7.3 billion in Cuba, $200 million in the Bahamas, and $500 million in the Turks and Caicos, amounting to a total of $32 billion in damages. Ike was the third costliest U.S. hurricane of all time, behind Hurricane Andrew of 1992 and Hurricane Katrina of 2005.

Hurricane Ike can be traced to a westerly wave leaving western Sudan on August 19, which moved westward through Nigeria and Mali and reached the coastal country of Senegal on August 28. Moving into the Atlantic Ocean, the wave slowly intensified over subsequent days while moving generally towards the west-northwest. On September 1, the wave developed a sufficient amount of convection and was designated Tropical Depression Nine. The depression had developed a large amount of convection as well as cyclonically curved bands. Satellite estimates were already indicating that the depression was a tropical storm; the National Hurricane Center did not classify it as such, however, because the convection was newly formed. The depression continued to intensify as it became better organized and at 5:00 p.m. EDT (21:00 UTC), it was upgraded to Tropical Storm Ike. Ike was located in an environment which was supportive of intensification and the forecast showed Ike becoming a hurricane within 36 hours of its upgrade.