Happening now.
Storm Watcher Colin McCarthy on Twitter:
In a shocking turn of events, Hurricane #Otis in the Eastern Pacific has unexpectedly, explosively intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in just 12 hours.Even worse, the storm is expected to make a catastrophic landfall tonight as a Category 5 hurricane near Acapulco, Mexico, home to 1 million people. Only 18 hours ago, people were expecting a tropical storm at landfall, and now a devastating Category 5 storm is likely.
This is pretty much a worst-case scenario, as residents have little time to find a safe shelter and protect life and property from this life-threatening storm.
A major hurricane (Category 3+) has never made landfall within 50 miles of Acapulco, let alone a Category 5 hurricane. Otis could become the first Eastern Pacific hurricane ever recorded to make landfall as a Category 5 in Mexico.
Anyone in or near Acapulco should rush storm preparations to completion as their is little time left to shelter from #Otis.
With warmer oceans serving as fuel, Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to rapidly intensify from wimpy minor hurricanes to powerful and catastrophic, a study said Thursday.
Last month Hurricane Lee went from barely a hurricane at 80 mph (129 kph) to the most powerful Category 5 hurricane with 155 mph (249 kph) winds in 24 hours. In 2017, before it devastated Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria went from a Category 1 storm with 90 mph (145 kph) to a top-of-the-chart whopper with 160 mph (257 kph) winds in just 15 hours.
The study looked at 830 Atlantic tropical cyclones since 1971. It found that in the last 20 years, 8.1% of the time storms powered from a Category 1 minor storm to a major hurricane in just 24 hours. That happened only 3.2% of the time from 1971 to 1990, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports. Category 1 hurricanes top out at 95 mph (153 kph) and a hurricane has to have at least 111 mph (178 kph) winds to become major.
Those are the most extreme cases, but the fact that the rate of such turbocharging has more than doubled is disturbing, said study author Andra Garner, a climate scientist at Rowan University in New Jersey.
When storms rapidly intensify, especially as they near land, it makes it difficult for people in the storm’s path to decide on what they should do — evacuate or hunker down. It also makes it harder for meteorologists to predict how bad it will be and for emergency managers to prepare, Garner and other scientists said.
“We know that our strongest, most damaging storms very often do intensify very quickly at some point in their lifetimes,” Garner said, highlighting 2017’s Maria, which some researchers said killed nearly 3,000 people directly and indirectly. “We’re talking about something that’s hard to predict that certainly can lead to a more destructive storm.”
And this “has become more common in the last 50 years,” Garner said. “This has all happened over a time period when we’ve seen ocean waters get warmer.”
National Hurricane Center, NOAA:
Tue Oct 24 2023
A nightmare scenario is unfolding for southern Mexico this evening with rapidly intensifying Otis approaching the coastline.
Satellite images show that Otis has continued to intensify, with Dvorak Data-T estimates between 130-145 kt during the past few hours. The initial wind speed is set to 140 kt as a blend of these values, making Otis a Category 5 hurricane.
Otis has explosively intensified 95 kt during the past 24 hours, a mark only exceeded in modern times by Patricia in 2015. Otis should maintain category 5 status before the hurricane makes landfall near the Acapulco area overnight or early on Wednesday.
The only significant change to mention to the track forecast is that it has been shifted to the right due to a recent wobble to the east and the latest model trends, and a general north-northwest motion at about 8 kt is anticipated through landfall.
Rapid weakening is anticipated after landfall, and Otis should dissipate tomorrow night over the higher terrain of Mexico.
This is an extremely serious situation for the Acapulco metropolitan area with the core of the destructive hurricane likely to come near or over that large city early on Wednesday. There are no hurricanes on record even close to this intensity for this part of Mexico. Key Messages:1. Otis is forecast to be a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane when it reaches the southern coast of Mexico early Wednesday. Life-threatening hurricane-force winds are expected in portions of the Hurricane Warning area with catastrophic damage expected.
2. A potentially catastrophic storm surge is expected to produce life-threatening coastal flooding near and to the east of where the center makes landfall. Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves.
3. Heavy rains from Otis will continue to impact areas of southwest Mexico this week. This rainfall will produce flash and urban flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain.