Friday, October 23, 2015

Hurricane Patricia

Hurricane Patricia will be hitting Manzanillo, Mexico sometime later today. This is on the west coast just south of Puerto Vallarta and will be carrying winds of 245 MPH! This is the strongest hurricane ever recorded and it's winds are currently strong enough to level concrete buildings!

Steve, a Blogger I follow lives there and as far as I know is staying to ride it out! You can check out his blog here.



10/23/15 Friday, 05:00AM MDT Hurricane Patricia is roaring toward the southern coast of mainland Mexico and is expected to make landfall somewhere near Manzanillo late today. Patricia is now a killer Category 5 Hurricane and expected to further intensify by the time of landfall. Patricia has a current barometric reading of 880Mb, making it the 5th deepest tropical cyclone barometric reading and has become the record holder of the strongest sustained winds of a tropical cyclone anywhere. This system will have the potential to level concrete block buildings on landfall. Coastal storm surge and extreme surf will destroy all coastal installations. We recommend if you are within the projected path cone of approaching Patricia you abandon property and seek shelter 50-75 miles away immediately. Patricia is forecast to still be a Tropical Storm well inland when affecting the third largest population center in Mexico, Guadalajara. For those in the storms path who believe they have weathered hurricanes before, this will be like nothing anyone in this hemisphere has ever experienced and has the potential to be a terrain altering event.

14 comments:

  1. It does sound like it will be devastating, I would hope Steve makes the right decision

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    1. Steve decided to stick it out. I hope he made it with few problems. He has not reported but there is no power there (or phone / DSL service either probably.

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  2. I think Steve is a little mistaken though. He says a category 3 but it really is a 5 and if they had a 6 on the scale it would probably be that. Hope he finds shelter.

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    1. Yes, it is well above the threshold for a cat 5 and is heading right for him. He has been silent for a few hours so hopefully he is on the road heading inland.

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  3. Gutsy decision. Hope he is right, but that is going to be one big wallop.

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  4. Made it to Maehuala...pretty sure we'll be okay here. Glad we're closer to the Gulf coast than the Pacific coast!

    www.travelwithkevinandruth.com

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    1. I am glad you got out of Monterrey! You probably would have been OK if worst came to worst, just a lot of rain. As long as Chris & Juan's lane way stayed passable.

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  5. Amazing how powerful this storm is. One website talks about a few typhoons that have had a little lower pressure (Typhoon Tip was 870mb vs 880 for Patricia) but no storm has ever had higher recorded wind speed. They also said it's possible some of those other storms were stronger and of course it's highly likely that storms in the past have been stronger but this is the strongest since we've started recording them a century or so ago.

    We have to remember that just like temperatures we can't ever say something is the highest or lowest ever, only ever recorded.

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    1. I guess it was the very warm ocean temperatures that allowed the change in wind speed. It also seems to be holding onto it's cat 5 status as it moves inland. Pretty impressive storm.

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  6. I think it could be viewed as El Nino kicking it off right. They are saying we are going to get a ton of rain in Southern Cal which is good but we are going to have to be careful.

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    1. SoCal has to find a way to catch and hang onto some of that rain. It might be a damp winter for you and for us on the Baja.

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  7. this is simply one bad dude and lots of people in the path will pay the price...

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