Patricia: Most Intense Hurricane Hits México

So, Hurricane Patricia became the most powerful hurricane ever recorded after growing explosively in the waters off Mexico, threatening disaster for the country’s southwestern coast.

Several sources report an intensity of 350 KM/h. The government has issues warnings to the states that will be affected by the storm (Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Coahuila) and there are warnings in the country due to the expected rainfall and strong winds that will be felt as Patricia enters the country.

Also, the Mexican Armed Forces have already been deployed to provide aid in the affected areas.

So, we'll see what happens now. D:

Catastrophic Landfall Expected in Mexico.

edited 23rd Oct '15 2:30:51 PM by Cid

Opened.

This is a year of El Nino, a climate phenomenon where the northbound cold ocean currents off the western coast of South America weaken and warm up. This causes more northerly waters such as these off the west coast of Central America to heat up and the hurricanes that form there during this season to become stronger.

Apparently, this hurricane has already exceeded the strength of the strongest hurricane recorded so far, Wilma in the Caribbean 2005.

The effects of global warming and El Niño really, this may break records but I bet the new records will only last till the next El Niño.

Sustained winds of over 190 mph...yikes.

After doing some quick math, if the Saffir-Simpson scale didn't cap out at 5 and kept the pattern established by Categories 2-4 going, that would make Patricia a Category 6.

I'm not really all informed about the state of Mexico's hurricane readiness, but I don't think anyone is really ready for a Category 6. This is going to get bad.

Given that we get quite a few storms every year, we're more or less used to getting some pretty bad ones. The time of response is usually fast because of our experience: e.g. there are already several centres (in all major cities) to collect food and other basic stuff to send to the communities affected, and the armed forces (whose main purpose is to help during emergencies like this one) are already evacuating the locals and tourists.

However, it's expected that the most affected zones will be the poorest ones. This is because they don't have access to the information provided to most developed areas, because they live in dangerous areas (near rivers, in unstable terrain, at the bottom of hills where they suffer the risk of being buried by landslides, etc), and because the government focuses first on the cities and then the small towns and villages.

In the end, the overall feeling is that we're as prepared as anyone can be... but we know it won't be enough.

... huh. Seems like it's petered out pretty fast. That's good.

Not quite quickly enough, it appears - landfall occurred at category 5.

Fortunately, though, word is that it hit a relatively uninhabited part of the coast, and only scraped the nearest city, Manzanillo, before rapidly running out of steam. It's Cat Two now.