Early Riser:Pacific Hurricane Season Begins
The Eastern Pacific hurricane season often takes a back seat when compared to the Atlantic,but recent years have proven to be a wake-up call for both Mexico and the United States when it comes to the serious impacts that storms in this ocean basin can produce.
Big Picture
-Season Starts May 15: That's over two weeks earlier than the Atlantic's official start due to warmer waters and more favorable upper-level winds earlier in the season.
-A Typical Season: Based on the 1991-2020 average,15 named storms form in the Eastern Pacific each year. This year's first Eastern Pacific storm will be given the name Alvin.
-Where They Form And Track: The map below is centered on August,but it gives a general sense of where these Eastern Pacific storms tend to roam during the season. Most of them are concentrated in the Pacific waters west of Mexico.
Many of them track harmlessly westward out to sea,but sometimes they can impact land,particularly Mexico. On occasion,their impacts can be felt in the southwestern U.S. and Hawaii.
Deeper Dive
-Mexico Has Had Back-To-Back Devastating Years: In October 2023,catastrophic Hurricane Otis struck Acapulco as a Category 5,becoming Mexico's costliest tropical cyclone. Last year,Hurricane John hit Michoacán and Guerrero states in September,including Acapulco,triggering widespread flooding and mudslides. The hurricane and its remnants were blamed for 29 deaths in the country.
-Wakeup Call For U.S. Two Years Ago:The Southwest is the U.S. region that occasionally sees impacts from Eastern Pacific storms. The storms typically fall apart well to the south,but sometimes the weather pattern allows the leftover moisture and energy to spread into the region and fuel flooding rain.
An extreme example of this happened in August 2023,when former Hurricane Hilary caused $900 million of damage in the U.S. after its remnants swirled into California and other parts of the West,triggering significant flooding.
-Long Treks To Hawaii Can Happen:Hurricane Iniki in 1992 might be the most serious example of the impacts storms originating in the Eastern Pacific can generate in Hawaii. Kauai was hit especially hard by damaging winds and storm surge when Iniki made landfall there at Category 4 intensity.
Recent close calls for Hawaii include Hurricane Douglas in July 2020 and Hurricane Lane in August 2018.
More To Know
-Cold Waters Protect U.S. West Coast From Hurricane Landfalls: Sea-surface temperatures drop off dramatically north of Mexico's southern Baja Peninsula. When powerful hurricanes track northward in the direction of the West Coast and hit that colder water,they lose their fuel,causing them to weaken quickly and fall apart.
-California Has Seen Extremely Rare Landfalls:On Oct. 2,1858,the only known hurricane to hit Southern California slammed into San Diego. Sustained hurricane-force winds resulted in extensive property damage. A tropical storm with 50-mph winds also hit Long Beach in September 1939.
As in 1858,any hurricane would have to be moving fast enough,over waters just warm enough,to maintain its intensity on the way northward to have a California landfall.
-Eastern Pacific Is Home To Western Hemisphere's Strongest Storm: Hurricane Patricia in October 2015 had maximum sustained winds of 215 mph off Mexico's Pacific Coast,far above the Category 5 threshold of 157-plus-mph winds. No other hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere (Atlantic and Eastern Pacific combined) is known to have had winds that high.
Patricia eventually made a Category 4 landfall in a sparsely populated area north of Manzanillo. Two small villages – Emiliano Zapata and Chamela – suffered the most extreme damage.
Chris Dolce has been a senior digital meteorologist with www.weathernow24.com for nearly 15 years after beginning his career with Weather Now 24 in the early 2000s.
