Hurricane Otis’s top winds are weakening with its move across southern Mexico, drenching the region with flooding rains after it came ashore near the resort city of Acapulco as the strongest storm ever to hit the country.
The storm is packing maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour, making it a Category 2 storm on the five-step, Saffir-Simpson scale, the US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory at 8 a.m. New York time. It came ashore at 1:25 a.m. local time as a Category 5 hurricane, with winds of 165 mph — enough power to tear homes and businesses apart.
“This is the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in Mexico on record, though formal records for the eastern Pacific only extend back to around 1950,” said Ryan Truchelut of commercial-forecaster WeatherTiger LLC. “The scenario of unforecast rapid intensification occurring just prior to landfall in a populated area is a worst-case scenario.”
Before Otis made landfall, the US National Hurricane Center said it was a “nightmare” situation. While the storm is weakening, it’s still deadly.
“Damaging hurricane-force winds will spread inland over southern Mexico this morning with extremely destructive winds near the core during the next few hours,” the NHC said. The storm’s center was located about 60 miles northwest of Acapulco.
As Otis approached, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador asked the residents of Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, to move to shelters and said that a Navy security plan was in place.
“Remain in safe places, away from rivers, streams, ravines and be alert,” he said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The hurricane is hitting the region with life-threatening storm surge and pelting southern Mexico’s Pacific coast with massive waves, according to the NHC. While Otis is expected to rapidly weaken and dissipate later Wednesday, it could bring as much as 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain in some areas through Thursday, accompanied by floods and mudslides.
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Initial estimates say Otis’s top winds increased faster than any other storm on record in the eastern Pacific, but post-season analysis may change that, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said in an interview.
As climate change warms the world’s oceans, providing fuel for hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, rapid intensification of storms is happening more often. Such developments are dangerous because it can take coastal residents and emergency officials by surprise when a storm has a huge burst of strength just before landfall.
(Updates with latest US National Hurricane Center advisory throughout. An earlier version corrected the timing of a recent hurricane update.)
Author: Brian K. Sullivan and Alex Vasquez
