PATRICIA: One for the record book!

On Tuesday 20 October 2015 a couple of tropical waves off the Pacific coast of Central America, a region that has seen continued disturbed weather activity for several months now, started to get better organized showing signs of potential further development.  I was aware of these systems while I was following Hurricane OLAF in the Central Pacific to the southeast of Hawaii.

On Wednesday the 21st one of these tropical waves  got organized, became a tropical depression and continued strengthening into  tropical storm PATRICIA, the sixteenth-named tropical cyclone of the 2015 East Pacific hurricane season, still showing signs of potential further development late that same day. Initial model runs predicted a track paralleling the Pacific coast of Mexico slowly recurving toward the north and then northeast over an area of rather warm sea surface waters, perhaps reaching mid category 2 strength before making landfall and decaying.

During the night to early morning hours from Wednesday into Thursday the 22nd PATRICIA reached hurricane strength and turned further northeast toward the coast of central Mexico from Manzanillo to Puerto Vallarta. Intensity predictions continued to be for a mid category 2 tropical cyclone.

Something happened during the night hours from Thursday into Friday the 23rd that propelled PATRICIA through a process of rapid, and unprecedented, intensification to a rather strong, even monstrous, category 5 hurricane.

As of mid-morning this Friday 23 October PATRICIA is generating sustained maximum winds of 325 kph (~ 202 mph) gusting to 386 kph and still strengthening. Analysis of current data indicates the hurricane may reach winds of 335-340 kph gusting to near 400 kph before landfall on the central Pacific coast of Mexico, some time this afternoon.

All indications are that PATRICIA may still be a category 5 storm when it makes landfall, only the second category 5 hurricane to do so since records have been kept. Storm surge, extremely high waves, extreme rainfall in addition to very strong winds will batter the coastal region generating flash flooding and mudslides.

PATRICIA is so large of a system, at more than 1000 kilometers in diameter, that is already interacting with atmospheric systems over Texas and the southern plains of the U.S.A. where copious amounts f rain and potential flooding are expected today.

PATRICIA appears to be one for the record book!