Tropical Depression Patricia

Saturday October 24, 2015 10:00AM MDT Patricia, diminished to a Tropical Storm and is now inland over central Mexico. Tropical Storm Patricia is expected to dissipate quickly through the day today but continue to haul vast amounts of rain to the north-northeast and take rain into coastal Texas and into the southeastern United States in the week ahead. Patricia will have little or no effect of Baja weather. 

Early news reports in the Mexican press from the region are indicating that the catestrophic damage from the landfall of this, the most powerful hurricane in the western hemisphere ever, is amazingly limited. One bridge in Manzanillo had the footings washed away and collapsed but as of this hour no fatalities have been reported. 

Patricia was a surprising storm, first gathering intensity quickly overnight and then accelerating as it approached the coast, it limited emergency responce perparedness time. Local officials are crediting the quick organization of evacuations and obedience to evacuation orders that haver resulted in no reported loss of life at this time. Without a doubt, the amazing prestorm work by Mexican government services mobilized quickly, diseminated the importance of evacuation effectively and avoided potentical signifiant loss of life. 

There are signficant numbers of downed trees and damaged roofs throughout the region and arroyos are running dangerously high and will continue to do so for the next 12 to 24hrs. Coastal flooding of the Malecon area of Manzanillo washed inland from the shorefront businesses, which suffered severe flooding damage on the first floor. The civil protection authorities of the two most affected states, Colima and Jalisco, agree that the danger continues from flash flooding, washouts and rains that will continue into this afternoon in many areas. 

Tourists were evacuated from Puerto Vallarta hotels on busses organized at a moments notice to faclities further inland like Guadalajara beginning late Thursday and on into Friday mid day. Although there are always those dissatisfied with the interuption to a once a year vacation, it is evident that civic authorites on all levels worked well together in providing a quick solution to what could have been a very deadly event. 

At 09AM Tropical Depression Patricia was located near 23.9N 101.6W and was moving 40° at 20kts. Central barometric pressure was 1002Mb and winds were 30kts with gusts to 40kts making Patricia well short of tropical storm status. Patricia will continue to diminish over land and by late to day should cease to exist as a tropical cyclone late today or early tomorrow. 

There has been debate about the ranking of Patricia’s intensity. Patricia was the most powerful “hurricane” ever. Tropical cyclones are call hurricanes in the North Atlantic and Eastern/Central Pacific, areas of forecasting by the National Hurrican Center. Patricia was the most powerful hurricane with barometric pressure of 879 and winds around 200mph/175kts, in their forecasting zone. Patricia beat out 2009’s Atlantic Category 5 Wilma at 882Mb and 185mph/160kts. This was by far the largest system in our own basin as well with a big jump over the previous record holder, Linda in 1997, which bottomed out at 902Mb and 185mph/160. The two Indian Ocean hurricane basins North, and West have had some monster storms all around 900Mb, as had the Australian basin. The Souther Atlantic Basin is the least violent having never produced more than a Category 3. The Western Pacific is the largest basin, giving the storms plenty of time and warm, open water to gather force and is the world wide record holder with the deepest tropical cyclones, there called Typhoons. Typhoon Tip in 1979 recorded the lowest barometric pressure at 870Mb, but lesser reported winds than Patricia. The Eastern Pacific also holds positions 2, 3 and 4 with Nora, June and Ida coming in ad 875Mb, followed by Patricia. 

Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones tend to be physically smaller than cyclones in the Atlantic basin and much smaller than some of the massive systems that develop in the Western Pacific. Patricia was a particularly compact system and came ashore in an area with a quick rise to coastal mountains and relatively limited populations before loosing a lot of its punch and passing just to the inland east side of Puerto Vallarta and  a good distance to the west of the 4th largest city in Mexico, Guadalajara. Heavy rains and the potential for flash flooding will continue to exist the the widening swath of Patricia as it moves toward an early week connection with a Gulf of Mexico system which will bring intense rains to coastal Texas.

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