Most Powerful Hurricane in Western Hemisphere to Hit Mexico

[Broomstick]

I just heard about this today, and I'm slightly surprised we haven't heard more about this. Hurricane Patricia with sustained winds of 200 mph/320 kph (meaning gusts will be even higher! ) is going to hit Mexico's Pacific coast this evening, in the state of Jalisco. If you're not familar with the state, it's where the tourist trap attraction Puerto Vallarta is located, and the city of Guadalajara is a bit further inland. This is meteorologically worse than Katrina or Andrew, which if I recall correctly received a lot more press coverage.

This could be - probably will be - hugely devastating.

The cynic in me thinks this isn't getting much play because no one has died yet, but maybe I've just been under a rock lately and missed the updates. Sounds pretty damn scary to me. In Midwestern American terms, the sustained winds are right on the border between an F3 and F4 tornado. Holy fuck, that's not hide under the bed weather, that's hide under your house and dig your basement deeper weather (except, of course, for the flooding risk that probably makes sitting in the basement hazardous).

[Edi]

Just watched the post-7-o'clock news weather report and that's one bloody scary storm.

Sustained winds of 90 m/s and gusts at 110 - 120 m/s (110 m/s is just shy of 400 kph). Torrential rains and expected storm surge of 8 to 9 meters (26 to 30 feet). The meteorologist said that if the hurricane hits the coast full force, there will be nothing left standing. The exact saying in Finnish is "not one stone on top of another", referring to stone foundations of houses.

The region of the harshest winds is expected to be just slightly over 50 km wide, but that's going to be small comfort for anyone anywhere near where it lands.

[Flagg]

Wow. Hopefully it will take a left and go out to sea. If it doesn't, I really don't look forwards to all the racist, unfunny, and all around offensive "Mexico Leveled By Strongest Hurricane Ever! Damage Is Said To Be In The 10'S Of Dollars", meanwhile hundreds, if not thousands, or even tens of thousands of people will be dead or missing. Assholes in FL were making that joke after Katrina destroyed New Orleans, despite the stress and trauma they suffered when my area got nailed 4 times in one year and we had National Guard Unit patrols and checkpoints with their M-4's out locked and loaded.

[Broomstick]

Sustained winds of 90 m/s and gusts at 110 - 120 m/s (110 m/s is just shy of 400 kph). Torrential rains and expected storm surge of 8 to 9 meters (26 to 30 feet). The meteorologist said that if the hurricane hits the coast full force, there will be nothing left standing. The exact saying in Finnish is "not one stone on top of another", referring to stone foundations of houses.

Yeah. Those windspeeds are normally found in major tornadoes, which have been known to level stone/brick/reinforced buildings. Except tornadoes only last a few seconds to maybe a minute over a location, hurricanes last hours....

[Adam Reynolds]

I just heard about this today, and I'm slightly surprised we haven't heard more about this. Hurricane Patricia with sustained winds of 200 mph/320 kph (meaning gusts will be even higher! ) is going to hit Mexico's Pacific coast this evening, in the state of Jalisco. If you're not familar with the state, it's where the tourist trap attraction Puerto Vallarta is located, and the city of Guadalajara is a bit further inland. This is meteorologically worse than Katrina or Andrew, which if I recall correctly received a lot more press coverage.

That is probably because you live in America and those hurricanes hit American cities.

[aerius]

I just heard about this today, and I'm slightly surprised we haven't heard more about this.

This storm caught everyone by surprise, a couple days ago this thing was a borderline tropical storm/Cat 1, then it hit perfect conditions and literally bombed out into a Cat 5 in under a day and kept right on intensifying. There honestly wasn't much to report on until last evening, we got a Cat 2 in the Pacific 600 miles off Mexico isn't exactly newsworthy. Those things are a dime a dozen. Then the storm exploded and pretty much went off the scale, and this morning everyone was crapping their pants.

Latest data I'm seeing is 879mb central pressure, and the cloud tops are cooling which means the damn thing is still getting stronger. Remember Supertyphoon Haiyan which hit the Philippines a couple years ago? This is about the same, though thankfully not as big.

[Patroklos]

And Katrina wasn't a big deal methodologically as you say, but rather geographically and what that let us predict. Puerto Vallarta is pretty mountain right up to the coast in most places which should help with the storm surge and winds. They are going to have a hell of a time with flash flooding in the valleys and gouges though which just happens to be where most people and commercial activity are. The beach resorts themselves of course are in severe trouble, even if on the cliffs they will get the full force of the wind.

[Broomstick]

That is probably because you live in America and those hurricanes hit American cities.

Remarkably enough, we do get news of epic weather in other parts of the world, even in the US.

We usually do hear about Mexican hurricanes from the Pacific because their bad weather usually does migrate to the southern US, even if it's only a tropical storm by then.

[Broomstick]

Sustained winds now up to 324 kph. Gusts to 398 kph.

For comparison, that would put the gusts at about 1/3 of the speed of sound.

Or, another way - EF5 tornados have windspeeds 322 kph or over. Stop and think about that for a minute. The sustained winds in this thing are now matching those of an EF5 tornado. It has gusts even worse than that. And what it passes over won't be subjected to those conditions for just a minute or two, it will be hours.

There ain't gonna be shit left where this thing comes ashore, and that's even before the storm surge hits. I hope people can evacuate, because that's the only reasonable thing to do.

Man, I get chills just thinking about it.

In addition, sea levels are supposed to rise up to 3 meters in southern California tonight as a result of this storm. It's massive geographically.

[TheFeniX]

"Thankfully," from what I've read, the areas of Mexico that are getting hit are fairly sparse in population. They're still evacuating 10s of thousands of people though. We're going to get hit by rain all weekend, but nothing like our southern neighbors. I wish them luck.

[aerius]

Cockpit footage from the hurricane hunter plane. That plane is getting slammed.

[Broomstick]

The weather radar flashing a TURBULENCE warning was almost cute. Turbulence? Ya think?

[madd0ct0r]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 1021832664

In case its not readable. I will match all donations

[aerius]

The weather radar flashing a TURBULENCE warning was almost cute. Turbulence? Ya think?

Saw some posts on another forum that said the plane dropped over 2000' in 30 seconds while penetrating the eyewall.
I'm not sure if that's a barf bag moment or an "oh god I'm going to die!" moment.

[Grumman]

Saw some posts on another forum that said the plane dropped over 2000' in 30 seconds while penetrating the eyewall.
I'm not sure if that's a barf bag moment or an "oh god I'm going to die!" moment.

Why not both?

[Napoleon the Clown]

The weather radar flashing a TURBULENCE warning was almost cute. Turbulence? Ya think?

Saw some posts on another forum that said the plane dropped over 2000' in 30 seconds while penetrating the eyewall.
I'm not sure if that's a barf bag moment or an "oh god I'm going to die!" moment.

Pucker Factor Level 9.


Let's hope the evacuations go well for this thing so there's a minimum of casualties. It's kind of nuts to see a storm this intense.

[Broomstick]

I hope that those who are hunkering down in place - because not everyone could get out - will be OK.

[Borgholio]

The weather radar flashing a TURBULENCE warning was almost cute. Turbulence? Ya think?

I was focused on the artificial horizon. That plane was being rolled pretty good. When the co-pilot has to handle the throttle because the pilot is too busy keeping the plane level, you know it's bad.

[Broomstick]

You don't really try to keep an airplane level in that sort of mess. You try to keep the turbulence from exceeding the design parameters of the airplane. And you try to keep from developing stuff like spins and graveyard spirals.

[Patroklos]

It appears it made landfall as a CAT 5 at 160mph. I'm Glad for that and the people enduring it.

[Edi]

Yeah, it fizzled out really quickly, but I don't think anyone is complaining about that. It has the potential to do epic damage, so going out with a relative whimper rather than a big boom is definitely a good thing.

[Broomstick]

The mountainous terrain helped a great deal with reducing the storm's intensity. It also apparently made landfall between the two largest population centers in the area, rather than hitting a city directly, and people were apparently able to either get out of the way or hunker down successfully.

Which is good news.

Although we could still hear about negatives over the next couple days to a week as the more remote areas come back into contact with the rest of the world.

[Elheru Aran]

Now imagine if one of those sons of bitches popped up in the Caribbean and made a beeline towards Florida. We'd be waving goodbye to most of the state.

[Borgholio]

With El Nino starting up, I don't think this is the last that will be headed our way. I wouldn't be surprised if Baha or even SoCal was hit at some point this year.

[Elheru Aran]

Random query: Are Pacific storms typically as strong as Atlantic/Caribbean storms, stronger, or weaker? Just curious how it compares.

It's also notable that hurricanes going through the Caribbean are more likely to wreak havoc than Pacific Coast hurricanes, as there's all the little islands and coastal population centers to get whacked. There's ports on the Pacific side, but less islands by far, as well as more mountains (for some reason the west side of the Americas tends to be kinda mountainous, all part of that Ring of Fire continental movement I suppose). So Atlantic hurricanes can be perceived as more devastating given that they have a larger impact.

Now what would have happened if Patricia had hit Los Angeles, that's a good question...