Posted on 08/31/2003 9:51:53 AM PDT by bonesmccoy
Understanding eastern Pacific hurricanes
Source: The USA TODAY Weather Book by Jack Williams
By Jack Williams, USATODAY.com
Even though an average of 18 tropical storms form over the eastern Pacific Ocean each year and around half develop into hurricanes, few of these storms hit land. A few hurricanes hit Mexico's West Coast and every few years a storm will brush Hawaii.
No hurricane has hit the California Coast since records began, but a tropical storm with 50 mph winds did come ashore at Long Beach on Sept. 25, 1939, killing at least 45 people. (Related: Tropical storms to affect California).
Since winds over the tropics around the globe blow generally from east to west, storms that form over the warm Pacific off the Central American and Mexican coasts are generally pushed toward the west. Some storms do turn toward the north to hit the Mexican Coast. Cold ocean water off the California Coast weakens storms that make it that far north.
Even though the storms die before reaching the USA, the remnants can bring heavy rain to California, the Southwest and sometimes to places as far east as Oklahoma.
Most hurricanes die before they get as far west as Hawaii, but some do make it. The water around Hawaii is cooler than farther south and the storms weaken, however. The last hurricane to hit Hawaii was Iniki in 1992, which devastated parts of the Island of Kauai with winds probably up to 115 mph. Iniki killed six people and damage was estimated at $2.3 billion in year 2000 dollars.
Eastern and central Pacific storms are called "hurricanes." Storms have to be west of the International Date Line to be "typhoons."
Until weather satellites began "seeing" eastern Pacific hurricanes in the 1970s, meteorologists had underestimated how many occur because many storms never come near land and fewer ships sail the eastern Pacific than the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The eastern Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15 through Nov. 30.
West Coast 'hurricane' winds aren't hurricanes
From time to time winds above 75 mph hit the Pacific Coast, especially the Northwest Coast. While these are "hurricane force" winds, they are not from hurricanes, but from strong extratropical storms.
One famous case was the Columbus Day Storm of 1962 that hit northern California, Oregon and Washington. It caused more than 50 deaths and had winds as high as 119 mph in Portland. When it hit the West Coast, this storm was extratropical, but began as Typhoon Frieda nine days earlier near Wake Island in the western Pacific.
The storm stayed a rather weak typhoon with 100 mph winds, before merging with an extratropical storm. The extratropical storm moved eastward across the Pacific and then northward along the Northwest Coast.
While some accounts called the storm "Typhoon Frieda" or "Hurricane Frieda" when it hit the Northwest, it was no longer a tropical storm, but had become extropical. (Related: Differences between tropical, extratropical storms).
If anything, the Pacific hurricanes are more powerful than the Atlantic variety - there was one a few years ago with 200 mph sustained winds, but fortunately it never made landfall.
FMCDH
That's actually pretty stupid if you think about.
But I always thought it was "typhoon" in the "western" Pacific (Hong Kong, Phillipines and such). So I was wondering about the term "hurricane" in relation to Hawaii. But an earlier poster answered that if the storm started in the "eastern" Pacific (off the coast of Mexico) and moved west it was still called a hurricane.
It's enough to turn the brain inside out, living on this side of the ocean!
The track has changed to a more southerly direction and the the sat. pic has the formation MUCH closer to the islands now.
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