The Cataclysm That Wasn’t: Hurricane Patricia Largely Spares Mexico, Texas

Expectations of calamity were running high on Friday, October 23, as Hurricane Patricia neared the southwest coast of Mexico. Just a few hours earlier, top sustained winds in Patricia were 200 mph--the highest reliably-measured surface winds in any tropical cyclone on Earth--and its central surface pressure was 879 mb, the lowest sea-level pressure ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. As Patricia stormed ashore, an automated station in Cuixmala, near the point of landfall, reported sustained winds of 185 mph, gusting to 211 mph (this report has not yet been evaluated or confirmed). Despite this ferocity, a number of factors lined up to minimize Patricia’s impact in Mexico, as we outlined on Saturday. These factors included the hurricane’s very small size; its landfall location, well away from the coastal population centers of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo; large-scale evacuations; the steep offshore topography of the landfall location, which reduced the potential storm surge; Patricia’s rapid motion, which reduced rainfall totals; and its speedy decay.


Figure 1. Aerial view of the Chamela community, Jalisco State, Mexico on October 24, 2015, after the passage of Hurricane Patricia. Patricia flattened dozens of homes on Mexico's Pacific coast, but authorities said Saturday the record-breaking hurricane largely spared the country as it weakened to a tropical depression. Photo credit: Mario Vazquez/AFP/Getty Images.


Figure 2. Residents stand outside their flooded house in Zoatlan, Nayarit state, some 150 km northwest of Guadalajara, Mexico, on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2015. Photo credit: Eduardo Verdugo/AP.


Figure 3. Patricia tracked just to the west of densely populated areas, thus greatly reducing its toll on southwestern Mexico. Image credit: Michael Lowry, The Weather Channel, @MichaelRLowry.

Two days after Patricia struck, it was increasingly apparent that the hurricane’s toll was far less than many had feared. As of late Sunday, eight deaths (three direct and five indirect) had been attributed to Patricia. Several feet of water flooded parts of Manzanillo, but Puerto Vallarta saw little significant impact. Destruction was widespread in a few small towns along Patricia’s immediate path, with hundreds of homes lost and landscapes ripped apart. According to storm surge expert Hal Needham, some of the worst surge damage occurred in the community of Barra de Navidad, just to the east of the grey circle showing maximum wind speeds in Figure 3. All in all, the total economic toll from Patricia in Mexico will likely be far below that caused by many weaker landfalling storms--perhaps less than $100 million US.


Patricia packed a lot of strength into its short life, maintaining at least Category 4 strength for a full 38% of its brief lifespan. Here are a few vital statistics:

Lifespan as tropical cyclone: 102 hrs
(became TD at 15Z 10/20/15, declared post-tropical at 21Z 10/24/15)

Lifespan at tropical storm strength: 84 hrs
(became TS at 3Z 10/21/15, downgraded to TD at 15Z 10/24/15)

Lifespan as hurricane: 54 hrs
(became Cat 1 at 9Z 10/22/15, downgraded from Cat 1 to TD at 15Z 10/24/15)

Lifespan as Cat 4/5 hurricane: 39 hrs
(became Cat 4 at 18Z 10/22/15, downgraded to Cat 1 at 09Z 10/24/15)



Figure 4. Wind speed in a hurricane is strongly correlated with the central pressure, as shown in this graphic for all Northeast Pacific hurricanes from 1954 through 2013. Patricia bore out this relationship as it intensified (white dashed line) to peak winds of nearly 175 knots and a minimum central pressure of 879 mb (yellow star). Image credit: Patrick Marsh, @pmarshwx.

Patricia’s remnants in Texas: wet but not too wild
Patricia’s impact on Texas also fell short of what could have transpired. As the hurricane’s remnants passed over the Texas coast on Saturday night and Sunday, they helped spin up a nontropical coastal low, as expected. But the heaviest rains stayed offshore, as the low was hustled along by a large upper-level trough moving across the state. Rainfall amounts averaged 5” to 10” from the central coast across the Houston area, resulting in widespread but non-catastrophic flooding. The heavy rains translated east into Lousiana and Mississippi on Sunday, as did flash flood watches and warnings. Baton Rouge notched 8.60” and the New Orleans airport picked up 8.67”, both setting monthly records for any single date in October. Even larger amounts of rain fell from Thursday through Saturday across central Texas, as the upper-level trough and an associated surface front interacted with rich Gulf moisture ahead of Patricia’s remnants (see radar loop embedded below). The area near Corsicana was hardest-hit, with the town of Powell receiving a three-day total of 20.15.” The multiday event pushed the Dallas-Fort Worth area into seventh place for its wettest year on record. With 46.64” up through Saturday, the DFW metro area is within striking distance of the record 53.54” observed in 1991.


Figure 5. A dropsonde launched by this NOAA crew on Friday, October 23, 2015, measured the lowest pressure ever recorded in a Western Hemisphere hurricane: 879 millibars. Left to right: (top row) Joe Sapp, Mike Holmes, Joseph Klippel, Lonnie Kregelka, Jim Warnecke, Tim Gallagher, Chris Lalonde, Bill Olney, Dana Naeher, Bobby Peek; (bottom row) Pat Didier, Scott Price and Adam Abitbol. Photo credit: Courtesy Joseph Klippel

A reconnaissance flight for the ages
The Hurricane Hunters who fly into storm after storm for NOAA and the U.S. Air Force may carry out hundreds of flights in a career, many of which garner little notice. But one foray of the NOAA P-3 aircraft dubbed ”Miss Piggy” will go down in history. During a single 10.5-hour flight on Friday, October 23, the NOAA team flew from Harlingen, TX, across Mexico; made two passes through the heart of Hurricane Patricia; and then flew back to their home base of MacDill AFB in Tampa, FL. One of the dropsondes the team launched into Patricia during that Friday flight recorded the 879-millibar central pressure that now stands as a Western Hemisphere record. The embedded video below gives a taste of what the crew encountered a day earlier, on Thursday, as they flew through the eyewall of Patricia while the hurricane was intensifying rapidly.

Hal Needham has a blog post this morning with photos and analysis of surge damage in Mexico related to Patricia's landfall. WU contributor Steve Gregory also has a new post, weighing in on another Texas rain event possible this coming weekend, followed by mild weather for much of the nation to kick off November.

Bob Henson