2023-10-26 23:27:23
In less than 12 hours, Otis went from a tropical storm to a powerful Category 5 hurricane. Early Wednesday morning it hit the Mexican resort of Acapulco with that intensity and left it incommunicado for hours. Only on Thursday morning were the authorities able to issue the first report of victims: at least 27 dead and four missing. And the media also spent Wednesday unable to broadcast photos of the devastation caused by the cyclone. Why did this phenomenon evolve so quickly?
Mexican authorities said Thursday that never before had a cyclone that hit the country intensified so quickly. And it is also the first time that a category 5 hurricane reached the territory.
LOOK: Hurricane Otis LIVE | At least 27 dead in Acapulco and latest news of the attack of the powerful cyclone
“In less than 12 hours, Hurricane Otis went from a tropical storm to category 5, the maximum on the Saffir Simpson scale, that is, from winds of 64 kilometers per hour it grew to 270 kilometers per hour,” said the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection of Mexico, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, at the Government’s morning press conference called Mañanera.
Hurricane Otis hit Acapulco, in Mexico, in category 5. Buildings affected by the passage of Hurricane Otis in the resort of Acapulco, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. (EFE/ David Guzmán).Hurricane Otis hits Acapulco. (AFP).
“What happened on Tuesday, October 24, was something atypical and an unlikely scenario. The historical record of intensification in Mexico, which was 24 hours with Hurricane Patricia, was broken in 2015,” added Rodríguez, who cited data from the National Center for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred).
“The international forecast models did not initially foresee that the hurricane would evolve as it did, much less that it would affect the port of Acapulco,” he continued.
The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) described what happened with Otis as a “nightmare scenario” for Mexico.
View of the damage caused following the passage of Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Guerrero state, Mexico, on October 26, 2023. (Photo by RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP).
From small storm to monstrous hurricane
Michael Brennan, director of the NHC, told CNN that the forecast was “on the high side of almost all the intensity guidance” that meteorologists obtain from computer models.
Brennan added that satellite data and hurricane models underestimated Otis’ intensity and did not measure how strong it might become.
CNN explained that Otis was initially a small storm, making it much more prone to large changes in intensity. As Tuesday progressed, and began to move over incredibly warm waters near the coast, it became clear that the environmental conditions expected by meteorologists were not occurring, and that the storm was not going to be contained.
“Imagine that you start the day expecting a stiff breeze and some rain, and during the night you get catastrophic winds of 165 mph (regarding 265 km/h),” wrote on the social network X Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the School Rosenstiel of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences at the University of Miami. “Just 24 hours earlier, it was a tropical storm and was forecast to make landfall as such,” he added.
Categories of a hurricane. (AFP).
NBC News highlighted that this incredible evolution of the hurricane fits a pattern that scientists are following with concern. In recent years, a higher percentage of tropical storms have intensified very quickly as they approached land, meaning they gained at least 35 miles per hour (regarding 56 km/h) of wind speed in a single day. .
This intensification is due to the warm waters of the ocean surface, which end up providing additional energy to the hurricane.
Thus, explains NBC News, the warming of sea waters and air caused by climate change might be playing an important role in the rapid evolution of hurricanes.
In accordance with Univisionthe El Niño Phenomenon contributed to Otis taking the intensity it did, as it is warming the waters of the Pacific.
A study published last week in the journal Scientific Reports found that tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean were 29% more likely to undergo rapid intensification between 2001 and 2020, compared to the period 1971-1990. According to the same study, in recent times more than twice as many hurricanes went from Category 1 or lower to Category 3 or higher in 36 hours, NBC News cited.
The worst case scenario
CNN said experts at the National Hurricane Center were using satellites to estimate Otis’ intensity, which is common, but this method can pose problems.
Michael Brennan confirmed this to CNN: “We don’t always have the best complete picture of what’s happening beneath the cloud layer that you see in satellite images,” he said.
So, to have exact measurements of the storms, aerial reconnaissance is used by the National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the so-called hurricane hunters. The method they use involves dropping sensors from aircraft over storms to take real-time measurements, including wind speed and pressure, CNN explained.
“By the time we had the Hurricane Hunter aircraft flying into the storm on Tuesday followingnoon, the data revealed that the storm was regarding 30 to 50 km/h stronger than we would have estimated just by looking at satellite images.” Brennan told CNN.
All forecasts changed drastically.
“It’s always the worst case scenario when you have a storm. [intensificándose rápidamente] very close to landfall, when you have to make significant upward adjustments to the forecast and the reality of the scenario that people are going to face is very different from what they had initially planned,” Brennan told CNN.
View of the damage caused following the passage of Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Guerrero state, Mexico, taken on October 26, 2023. (Photo by FRANCISCO ROBLES/AFP).
Damage to 80% of hotels in Acapulco
In addition to the 27 deaths, Hurricane Otis left hotels and businesses in Acapulco destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without electricity or access to Internet and telephone.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday that Otis’ winds toppled numerous trees and poles.
Telephone communications began to resume Thursday as the Highway del Sol, the fastest route from Mexico City, was reopened to traffic.
Acapulco has regarding 20,000 rooms
of hotel. At the time of Hurricane Otis’ impact, they were at 50% occupancy, according to authorities.
A looter carries a cart full of goods stolen from a supermarket following Hurricane Otis in Acapulco. (Photo by FRANCISCO ROBLES / AFP) Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and members of his cabinet walk through the mud while visiting the El Kilometro 42 community, near Acapulco. (Photo by RODRIGO OROPEZA/AFP).
The Guerrero state government reported that 80% of Acapulco hotels suffered damage.
The Acapulco airport was also “destroyed,” López Obrador said.
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