Hurricane Otis: How a tropical storm overnight turned into a "nightmare scenario"
National Hurricane Center, the hurricane Otis, made landfall near Acapulco on Wednesday morning as a Category 5 hurricane, «explosively intensified» by nearly 115 mph in just 24 hours, creating a «nightmare scenario» for southern Mexico.
According to the NOAA Hurricane Database, there had never been a Category 5 landfall in the East Pacific prior to Otis.
Hurricane Patricia, which made landfall in 2015 as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph, was the previous strongest landfall.
Unlike Otis, which made landfall near a major city, Patricia plowed through a sparsely populated and mountainous stretch of coast, avoiding Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo.
According to the National Hurricane Center, while Patricia hit the coast as a Category 4 storm, it quickly degraded and left a narrow path of severe damage in its wake. According to the center, two people died as a direct result of the storm.
The University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science's senior research associate Brian McNoldy wrote on X, «Imagine starting your day expecting a stiff breeze and some rain, and overnight you get catastrophic 165 mph winds.
It was predicted to make landfall as a tropical storm and was a tropical storm just 24 hours ago.»
The hurricane's extraordinary intensification fits a pattern that experts are watching with alarm. In recent years, a greater proportion of tropical storms have swiftly intensified as they approached landfall, gaining at least 35 mph in 24 hours.
Warm waters on the ocean's surface feed the storm's intensification, providing extra energy.
Scientists are still shocked as to what causes such quick intensification.
