Patricia, Strongest Recorded Hurricane with 200-mph Winds, Menaces Mexico

CNN ^ | October 23, 2015 | Greg Botelho

[Cecily]

With 200-mph sustained winds and even more powerful gusts, Hurricane Patricia was the strongest hurricane ever recorded by the U.S. National Hurricane Center as it bore down Friday on Mexico's Pacific coast.

The Miami-based meteorological center, in its 8 a.m. advisory, warned of a "potentially catastrophic landfall in southwestern Mexico" later Friday. While its strength could fluctuate, "Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane through landfall."

Patricia has potential to cause massive death and destruction to a large swath of the Mexican Pacific coast, including the tourist hot spots of Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco.

Citing observations by hurricane hunters, Patricia is "the strongest hurricane on record in the National Hurricane Center's area of responsibility (AOR) which includes the Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific basins," according to a Friday morning forecast discussion.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Bush’s fault. Bush and those damned SUVs.

Womyn and minorities will be hardest hit.

[Cecily]

I thought climate change caused totally by mankind was to blame for everything these days.

[Thorliveshere]

THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED—EVER-—IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!!!

Therefore, it’s man-made climate change.

[butlerweave]

Want to bet Obama will want to bring thousands of Mexicans affected by this to the US instead of sending money and supplies so they can rebuild . When something like this hits the US do people rebuild or do they run to Canada or Europe

[ClearBlueSky]

Strongest? How soon history is rewritten. Camille had winds of 200mph at landfall in Mississipi. Ironically news says that shelters in Mexico are military staffed and fully stocked with food and water. Let’s see. If true, shame on FEMA here.

[fwdude]

200 mph is NOT the “strongest hurricane ever recorded” here in North America. What shoddy “journalism.”

[minnesota_bound]

What about the poor drug cartels?
This could hurt sales and mass murdering.

[AppyPappy]

Racist hurricane attacks Mexico
Women and minorities will be hit hardest

[TigerClaws]

Obama will use this to get a few hundred thousand more Mexicans into the U.S.

Crisis = opportunity to further destroy America.

[A message]

They are saying it the strongest recorded for the Pacific coast.

[Sequoyah101]

But what about the children? What about the elderly? The disabled? Insert special interest group ___________.

[Pontiac]

Hurricane Patricia was the strongest hurricane ever recorded by the U.S. National Hurricane Center as it bore down Friday on Mexico's Pacific coast.

I thought that the big storms in the Pacific were called Typhoons.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek.

[dfwgator]

Live Webcam from Puerto Vallarta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP5Y4lISF0s

[going hot]

Going to blow and wash away a whole lot of shantys

[thackney]

Camille is estimated to have had gusts of 200 mph but the sustained winds topped out at 190 mph. Actual top end is estimated as the measurement instruments were destroyed during the hurricane’s impact.

http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/1960s/camille/

[NELSON111]

>>>200 mph is NOT the “strongest hurricane ever recorded” here in North America. What shoddy “journalism.”

How so? It's the strongest hurricane ever measured. Storms such as 1935 Labor Day Storm and Camille had estimated winds near 190-200....but nothing measured by recon.

Here's why it probably is the strongest we've seen in our lifetimes: The pressure is the lowest recorded in the NHC AOR...at 880 (and it probably went into the 870's given it deepened 6 mb between the last 2 passes of recon)...and the pressure gradient is EXTREME. Hurricane force winds only extend out 25 miles...and recon recorded a pressure drop of about 75 mb over 30 miles.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Strange. When we got our first TV back in 1956, we learned a lot about hurricanes in the Atlantic hitting the USA and destroying everything in sight.

There was Never a mention of a Pacific hurricane hitting anywhere.
Then in the 1970s the news began to report on Pacific hurricanes.

[Timpanagos1]

The liberal argument will be, if the border wall is not tall enough to keep Patricia out of the United States, how will any sized wall keep Julio, Juan, Manuel, Roberto, Pedro and millions of other illegal aliens out of the USA?

The only problem is that the Democrats want to let everyone with names like Juan, Julio, Joaquin in, but they want to keep Jesus out of the USA.

[Jeff Head]

I believe it is most definitely the strongest Pacific storm...but not necessarily the strongest world-wide.

I believe there have been hurricanes in the Atlantic with sustained winds that topped 200 mph.

For example, I believe hurricane Wilma, that hit Florida in 2005, had winds at or near 209 MPH. One well known scientist, Dr. Eric Uhlhorn of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division, presented a scholarly paper in 2012 where he posited this.

But as with all of these “top sustained winds,” it is only an estimate.

I also believe that hurricane Allen from 1980, had sustained winds over 200 MPH, though the official “estimate,” was 190 MPH.

It hard to tell because the hurricane hunter aircraft measure wind at altitude and then based on some pretty deep mathematical formulas, they estimate the ground winds. The best place to measure the ground winds is, of course, at the surface, and those are hard to come by given the obvious issues with measuring a 200 MPH wind at the place it is happening.

But there is no doubt at all that this hurricane is the strongest Pcific Storm, and it is not done yet. It may yet prove to be undoubtedly the strongest storm of all time.