A ‘perfect environment’ unleashes monster storm
Category 5 Patricia to inflict damage along Mexican coast. Experts say quick intensity likely a result of El Niño.
Powerful hurricane making landfall near resort of Manzanillo.
Daylight Saturday will show its extent, but there was no doubt late Friday that Hurricane Patricia would bring devastation after making landfall on a section of the Mexican Pacific coastline just west of the resort of Manzanillo.
The question, instead, was how a tropical storm rapidly transformed into a top-of-the scale Category 5 monster — one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded.
From Wednesday night through Friday, Tropical Storm Patricia blew up into a record-setting Category 5 hur--
ricane.
The maximum sustained winds increased from 85 mph Thursday morning to more than 200 mph by early Friday, meteorologists said.
“Incredible. You don’t see many like this,” said former hurricane hunter meteorologist Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private Weather Underground forecasting service. “In fact, in the Western Hemisphere, we’ve never seen anything like this.”
Urged to leave by Mexican authorities, thousands fled a storm surge that could reach as high as 25 feet and winds capable of blowing large ships ashore and leveling even sturdy buildings. Northern Mexico and parts of Texas could face heavy rains and flooding over the next few days.
Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said a combination of warm ocean water, low wind shear and a relatively compact storm structure provided “a perfect environment for the rapid intensification” of Patricia.
But colleagues pointed out that similar storms under similar circumstances have failed to grow on a such a scale.
“We have had situations with equally warm water and with low wind shear and we don’t get a record-breaking storm,” said James Franklin, chief of forecast operations at the Hurricane Center. “What is the exact combination of factors to produce a storm? I don’t think anybody really knows.”
In the Eastern Hemisphere, satellite estimates measured Typhoon Nancy at 215 mph in 1961 and Typhoon Violet at 205 mph also in 1961, but satellite measurements aren’t as precise, Masters said. (Hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are all the same thing with different names.)
Super Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines in 2013, was measured at 195 mph via satellite.
Worldwide, this is the ninth Category 5 storm this year, which is tied for the second most on record, Masters said.
The eastern and northern Pacific regions have had more tropical storms than usual this season; the Atlantic has had fewer.
That’s a classic signature of the weather pattern called El Niño — with warmer waters to feed storms and favorable winds in the Pacific and unfavorable winds in the Atlantic, Masters and others said. And many scientists believe the strength and duration of El Niños is growing as a result of global warming.
Climate science theory says that as the temperatures rises, the most extreme storms will get even stronger and wetter. Patricia’s record strength is “consistent with what we say” but there are too few examples to make a scientifically accurate connection, MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel said
Patricia and Haiyan from 2013 may be “warning signs that, hey this could be the future,” Masters said.