Tropical cyclones of 2023

Hurricane Dora has become only the second hurricane in recorded history to form in the northeastern Pacific basin, cross the north central Pacific, and cross into the northwestern Pacific and become a typhoon after 1994's Hurricane/Typhoon John.

On a more tragic note: Dora's winds have lead to devastating wildfires on the Hawai'ian island of Maui.

The next storm to watch is Hilary, currently rapidly strengthening off Mexico, for a low pressure system far to its NNW is expected to lift Hilary into California next week. Probably more rain than wind though.

As of the 9 am MDT advisory, the NHC has issued its first ever Tropical Storm Watch for southern California: from the border with Mexico to the Los Angeles/Orange County line, including Catalina Island.

Punta Abreojos to Punta Eugenia in Baja California are first in line with Hurricane Warnings.

Edited by tclittle on Aug 18th 2023 at 10:07:14 AM

Hilary makes landfall in the Northern parts of the Baja California peninsula as a strong tropical storm.

It's not over as Hilary is expected to bring flash flooding to the southwestern US after bringing a ton to western Mexico.

Edited by tclittle on Aug 20th 2023 at 1:24:18 PM

The Atlantic is filling up with sheared tropical storms currently. Emily, Franklin and Gert, with Franklin the only one likely to impact anything.

The NHC has already started to issue Ttopical Storm Warnings for south Texas from the mouth of the Rio Grande to Port O'Conner because the disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to get its act together just enough to become one before it makes landfall tomorrow.

Harold has struck South Padre Island, Texas with winds of 50 mph. All its doing gis bringing much needed rain to south Texas and northeastern Mexico.

Franklin struck Hispaniola earlier today as a 50 mph tropical storm.

Flooding is the biggest issue.

Idalia has formed in the extreme northwestern Caribbean. Florida through the central northern US Gulf coast should be keeping an eye out.

Irwin forms out to sea in the western Pacific and will probably only impact Hawai'i if at all.

Edited by tclittle on Aug 27th 2023 at 1:47:06 PM

People who live on the central and northern Florida Gulf of Mexico coast should absolutely start preparing in the morning as Idalia has "strengthened more than anticipated" as per the NHC's 10 pm CDT advisory discussion.

It's very likely we could be seeing a major hurricane striking Florida by Wednesday, and the ceiling for strength might be high considering how hot the water is in the Gulf of Mexico.

Idalia makes landfall on Florida near Keaton Beach as a cat 4 hurricane.

While ERC's are usually helpful in keeping winds down, the ones that happen before landfall spread the wind around.

China has issued a red typhoon warning for Huilai County to Hong Kong as still Super Typhoon Saola is expecting to make landfall there within the next 24 hours.

Hurricane Jova in the Eastern Pacific rapidly Intensifies into its first cat 5 of the season and the first one since 2018.

Edited by tclittle on Sep 6th 2023 at 11:57:28 AM

As of the 11 am AST advisory, the NHC is expecting Lee to rapidly intensify into a cat 5 hurricane in the next day and a half, barring an ERC.

Lee has explosively intensified into the North Atlantic basin's 20th cat 5.

It seems like Medicane Daniel may have become the deadliest tropical cyclone since Haiyan in 2013 - there are fears of over 2000 fatalities in Libya.

Bravo, WMO. I realize that not acting on a problem (the lack of a TC warning centre for the Mediterranean) until it gets people killed is normal human behaviour, but one can try to break the pattern. Especially if this claim is correct that other countries in a civil war did a better job at managing a forecasted storm.

Typhoon Koinu is about to hit Taiwan proper, but the Lanyu weather station on Orchid Island just measured a wind gust on 213 mph (342 kmph) as the storm slammed into the island a few hours ago.

Hurricane Lidia makes landfall in southwestern Mexico as a cat 4 storm with winds of 140 mph.

We've got an emergency. Hurricane Otis in the northwestern Pacific has explosively intensified into a cat 5 and is expected to remain one until landfall near Acapulco.

24 hour satellite loop of Otis's explosive intensification.

Edited by tclittle on Oct 24th 2023 at 11:16:44 AM

According to the NHC, landfall is imminent close to Acapulco with winds of 165mph - we are talking a worst-case scenario.

There very much is an even worse case scenario of the storm coming in more to the west allowing more surge to come into Acapulco Bay, but that's just splitting hairs at this point. This is extremely bad no matter what.

Otis has just made landfall in Acapulco, with winds of about 165mph. That makes it the strongest landfall in East Pacific history, and one of a few landfalls of tropical cyclones directly over a major city.

It's the first ever cat 5 landfall in the eastern Pacific.

Otis also blew past Patricia for the fastest rapid intesification in the basin (80kt over 12hrs for Otis vs 75kt over 12 hours for Patricia).

Looks like damage is severe in Acapulco - especially in the eastern part of the city thar had the double whammy of being in the "dangerous" quadrant of the storm and heavily hilly terrain where there were mudflows.

There are already 43 casualties...