The worst hurricane season in living memory ended yesterday not with a bang, but with a whimper as the last storm of the year was expected to dissipate miles from land.

Tropical Storm Otto was positioned 695 miles away from Bermuda last night and was not a threat to the Island.

The Bermuda Weather Service said that Otto had winds of 40 to 50 knots and was moving in a northerly direction at four knots.

Meteorologist James Morrison said: ?Otto is not a threat to Bermuda at this time, nor is it expected to be. It is supposed to linger in the area it is in now and eventually dissipate.?

He said the Weather Service had expected the storm to approach closer to the Island, but instead the storm ?hit a wall of weather conditions in the Atlantic?.

Otto closest point of approach to Bermuda has already passed.

But he said that the US National Hurricane Centre had been paying close attention on Otto for some time.

?They named it to be on the safe side,? he said. ?If they do not name the storms then people do not think of them as such a threat.?

Both Otto and Bermuda were in the headlines yesterday ? particularly in Florida and the Caribbean ? as Otto was the last of the 15 ferocious storms of the 2004 hurricane season.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30.

Nine hurricanes safely passed over Bermuda this summer and six of these were called major hurricanes.

But Florida was hit by an unprecedented four hurricanes in a single season, a two-month barrage of storms that triggered America?s biggest natural-disaster response.

Hurricane Charley ploughed into southwestern Florida in mid-August, and Frances, Ivan and Jeanne slammed the state in September.

In Florida alone, 117 lives were lost, 25,000 homes were destroyed and 4,600 more were heavily damaged.

A total of $42 billion damage was caused by the storms, surpassing the $34.9 billion caused in 1992 by Hurricane Andrew, America?s single most costly storm.

Hurricanes Frances, Ivan and Jeanne also wrought havoc on the Caribbean islands of Haiti, Grenada, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.