Satellite image of Hurricane Patricia at 0347Z Friday, October 23, 2015 (11:47 pm EDT Thursday).
Posted on 10/23/2015 2:08:35 AM PDT by uglybiker
History is being made tonight in the Northeast Pacific as Hurricane Patricia churns about 200 miles off the coast of Mexico, south-southwest of Manzanillo. With its 11 pm EDT Thursday advisory, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Patricia to Category 5, with top sustained winds of 160 mph and a central pressure of 924 millibars. Hurricane warnings are now in effect for the coast from San Blas to Punta San Telmo, including Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, with a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning eastward to Lazaro Cardenas. Update: Late Thursday night, an Air Force Hurricane Hunter flight captured some of the most extreme observations ever recorded in 70 years of reconnaissance activity. Based on flight-level winds of 179 knots (206 mph), NHC upgraded Patricia's strength at 12:30 am EDT Friday to 185 mph. The estimated surface pressure of 892 mb is the lowest on record for the Northeast Pacific, and it ranks #3 for the entire Western Hemisphere behind only Wilma (882 mb, on October 19, 2005) and Gilbert (888 mb, on September 13, 1988). A surface reading of 892 mb was recorded at Key West during the Labor Day hurricane (September 2, 1935).
Satellite image of Hurricane Patricia at 0347Z Friday, October 23, 2015 (11:47 pm EDT Thursday).
Visible satellite image of Hurricane Patricia close to nightfall, at 2345Z (7:45 pm EDT) Thursday, October 22. 2015. Image credit: NOAA and CIMMS/SSEC/University of Wisconsin.
(Excerpt) Read more at wunderground.com ...
There’s no large home depots there to grab wood from, but honestly, I’d be shocked if any of that building will remain after this storm has passed.
There’s at least one storm chaser down there, @icyclone, but even he’s heading to higher land and more sturdy shelter. He was positioned to catch the eye, but with the hurricane intensifying so much, even he sensibly ran.
If you nuke a tornado then wouldn't that tend to cause more damage than the tornado itself?
Right. It’s still like the gigantic tornado you mentioned.
I was in “only” a large F3 tornado (the records say) as a boy (we were in the basement) and the destruction (including our house) was pretty awesome... In one case, a car was picked up out of a garage, with the garage walls surviving, and the car dropped in our neighbor’s yard. Another garage was apparently very strongly built, but not anchored. It was picked up essentially intact, and dumped into a pond about 200 ft. in back of it. There were no marks indicating “dragging” of such an object between the “slab” of concrete the garage was on, and the pond. Later, when water conditions were clear, you could still see the roof of the garage a few feet under the water, in what I would guess was about 15 ft. of water. A roughly 200 sq. ft. portion of our roof clonked one of our neighbor’s roof. And so on...
Good idea....I wouldn’t have thought of that!
Even with the windows boarded up that building is not a safe place in a Cat 5 storm . That overhang on the roof is a major wind catcher . I would not want to have to shelter in there .
It’s one nasty storm that’s for sure....but there are mountains that might break some of it up along the way...at this point those on the beach have little hope if they remain there.
Josh Morgerman (@icyclone) spent a little time while scouting a safer location to observe the storm from explaining just that to those who were running the shelter.
He was in Perula Mexico last night but expects the town to be wiped out by the storm surge and winds.
Yep, most of the shore likely will be wiped by winds and storm surge, then cleared by the torrential rains as those mountains break up the hurricane.
Hurricanes seem to weaken rapidly when confronted by anything in their way. But this is still a hugh one.
I think that means you can find the pieces. See my # 84.
If you are in the direct path of the storm within a kilometer of the beach, even foundations stand a good chance of being removed.
Find a round house and beg the owner to let him stay there .
I’ve been through multiple Cat 5 storms , it is NOT pretty .
With the super low pressure on this one it is still getting stronger.
I had a direct eye wall hit in a Cat 4 pick up my shed and move it off it’s foundation 2 feet . The shed was designed to withstand a Cat 3 storm but I had it in a sheltered location . All the the sheds like it in the neighborhood were flattened.
Prayers for those in harm’s way.
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