Historical Look at Hurricanes in Baja

Well, dream on if you think the luck will hold though August. I heard it said just days before Hurricane Ignacio in 2003  "...it was no concern, storms never come up the Sea until after September 1st." That is nothing but an old wives tale. By the end of August we can start to get into some serious hurricane weather.

Anyone who has spent the summer in Baja knows, about August 15th the days become still and humid, and this is in addition to near 100 degree heat every day. Thunderstorms appear regularly over the mountains between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz. The earliest hurricane to make landfall in Baja Sur was August 15th and the latest was October 17th, thus defining Baja's hurricane season. However, a Category 1storm passed just 30 miles south of Cabo in 1958, certainly close enough to deliver some punch to the peninsula.

The warm water of the Sea can be in the upper 80°'s by late August and this becomes a very strong hurricane magnet. Storms that generate NW of Acapulco can sometimes get stuck  'inside' and travel up the Sea. Hurricane Ignacio did exactly that on August 26, 2003.

The good news is August tropical cyclones in Baja are still rare. The upper atmosphere steering winds are still moving eastward far north of the hurricane track and a majority of the storms move off into the colder waters of the Pacific and spin apart.

August Storms

However, August can spawn monster storms too, like Kiko in 1989. Kiko made it to Category 3 has it churned up the Sea of Cortez and  made landfall on the East Cape with winds in excess of 120 MPH. Kiko was the ONLY category 3 storm to ever make landfall in Baja.

September is the month to be a storm watcher in Baja. More than 150 tropical storms have passed within 250 miles of Cabo San Lucas since 1950. Many of them were just tropical storms, but September is the peak of the storm season.

By mid September the jet stream has dropped well down into Baja Sur before it makes a dramatic turn to the east. While I was plotting hurricane Marty the computer models forecast a continued NW progress harmlessly into the Pacific. Friday afternoon I noticed a drop to the south in the jet stream on the US Navy plots. These high speed upper air currents came almost as far as Magdalena Bay, then turn 90° east. That Friday night the BajaInsider predicted that Marty would not continue into the Pacific, but would turn and cross the peninsula south of Magdalena Bay. Marty hit the eastward winds south of the jet stream and banked against it's spin, progressively to the east. Marty arrived in La Paz on Monday morning. (thanks to my amateur weather tutor, Jim from Sea Witch!)

The jet stream can make a hurricane turn and it can tear it apart. The central column of convection is the engine that drives a hurricane. Hard turns or strong high altitude winds can disrupt the column and spin the storm apart. As the northern hemisphere cools these upper atmosphere steering winds drop further down Baja before turning east. The combination of these winds and energy still built up in the tropical regions are what make the period from September 15th to October 15th the peak of our storm season.

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Source Data:
National Hurricane Center Historical Hurricane Plots
Unisys Hurricane Archives