The center said Willa is expected make landfall late Tuesday or early Wednesday.īy early Monday, Willa had maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (255 kph) – the same windspeed Hurricane Michael had at landfall in Florida – and was centered about 200 miles (325 kilometers) south-southwest of the Islas Marias and 155 miles (250 kilometers) south-southwest of Cabo Corrientes. Tropical storm warnings ranged from Playa Perula north to San Blas and from Mazatlan north to Bahia Tempehuaya. National Hurricane Center said that Willa could “produce life-threatening storm surge, wind and rainfall over portions of southwestern and west-central Mexico beginning on Tuesday.” It predicted that Willa could become a Category 5 hurricane later Monday, generating life-threatening surf and rip tide conditions.Ī hurricane warning was posted for Mexico’s western coast between San Blas and Mazatlan, including the Islas Marias, a nature reserve and federal prison directly in the forecast track of the storm. The governments of Sinaloa and Nayarit states ordered coastal region schools to close on Monday and began preparing emergency shelters ahead of the onslaught. Four named storms made that trek in 2018, including Tropical Storm Olivia, which hit Hawaii on September 13.MEXICO CITY (AP) – Hurricane Willa has grown rapidly into an “extremely dangerous” near-Category 5 storm in the eastern Pacific, on a path to smash into Mexico’s western coast between Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta by Wednesday. Combining the tally may make sense: Storms often take long westward journeys across the 140° boundary line, particularly during the peak of the season between July and September. Taking the storm power of both regions into account, though, shows that the accumulated cyclone energy of the central and eastern Pacific hurricanes unleashed a record-breaking year. Back in 2015, there were three late in the season, including Hurricane Patricia.” Patricia, with sustained winds of 338 kilometers per hour, remains the strongest recorded storm for the region. “It’s not uncommon at all to have late October hurricanes. Hurricane Willa closed in on Mexicos Pacific coast with 120 mph winds Tuesday, threatening a major resort area along with fishing villages and farms.https:/. The two basins have different hurricane season lengths: Both end on November 30, but the eastern Pacific season begins in mid-May, while the central Pacific season starts June 1.Ĭounted alone using the ACE measure, the eastern Pacific season is currently the third most active on record - and there’s still a month to go, Bell notes. Meteorologists also separate the central and eastern Pacific into two distinct basins, with the dividing line at 140° W longitude, east of Hawaii. A major hurricane that lasts only a few days, for example, would add less to the overall energy of the season than one that lasts for more than a week. ACE takes into account both the intensity and the duration of a season’s storms, says Bell, who developed the measure in the 1990s. To better compare the overall strength of the season with historical records, NOAA uses the accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE. But there are many ways to measure the activity of a storm season: number of overall storms, number of named storms, number of major hurricanes above a category 3.
The legend shows the different categories of hurricanes as follows: Cat 5 (dark red), Cat 4 (red), Cat 3 (orange), Cat 2 (yellow), Cat 1 (green), tropical storm (teal), tropical depression (blue), and lower category (purple).
The 2018 season in the eastern Pacific has already had the largest number of major hurricanes on record, he says. Description: This map created by FCIT shows the track of hurricane Wilma in 2005. But whether or not the 2018 season is a record-breaker “depends on how you classify it,” Bell says. The eastern Pacific season has been “very active,” says Gerry Bell, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Md. EDT on October 23, as the storm approached the coast, it weakened into a category 3 hurricane, with maximum winds churning at 195 kilometers per hour. Take a look at Willa’s path on our Pacific hurricane tracker: /nu2ChERXRd- NOAA Satellites October 22, 2018Īt 2 p.m.
Willa is expected to make landfall along the southwestern coast of Mexico Tuesday afternoon or evening. Hurricane #Willa, seen by #GOESEast, is now a “potentially catastrophic” Cat.