Patricia, Strongest Hurricane Ever Seen In Eastern Pacific, Strikes In Mexico

CNN reports that Hurricane Patricia has made landfall in Mexico; Patricia is notable for having the third-lowest barometer reading ever recorded, and as "the strongest hurricane ever observed in the eastern Pacific or Atlantic oceans." Slate points out that at one point, "satellite estimates of Patricia’s intensity broke the Dvorak scale, peaking at 8.3 on the 8.0 scale. ... In fact, Patricia is now very close to the theoretical maximum strength for a tropical cyclone on planet Earth." The Weather Channel is tracking the storm's path, and predicts "catastrophic damage ... along a narrow path as the eye slices into the interior of southwest Mexico Friday night." Here's a map from the National Weather Service showing Patricia's track as well as projected path.

Comments

Perfect timing

[Anonymous Coward]

No no... it says right here under sub-section J that if you want humanitarian this time the price of a wall must be included.

Re:Perfect timing

[Adriax]

The Mexican government will just borrow that money from wall st. with a smaller government agency then declare it bankrupt.

Re: Perfect timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Did FEMA make it to New Orleans yet?

Re: Perfect timing

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because bush hates black people

Re: Perfect timing

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Well, Obama has been in office for quite a bit of time (and gigantic deficits during that time)...

Gosh, never mind, it's all still Bush's fault....

Re: Perfect timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Obama has been in office for quite a bit of time (and gigantic deficits during that time)...

That's what happens when right-wing presidents such as Obama get elected. If you had a moderate Republican as president, minimum wage would be double what it is now, and taxes on the rich would have been doubled or tripped. Instead, you have a right-wing president who has prioritized deficit reduction via the automatic fail of austerity.

But, that's what you get when you vote for right-wingers.

Re: Perfect timing

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been 70 years since the Holocaust and the Jews haven't been resurrected. Must be Angela Merkel's fault and not Hitler's, derpaderpaderp.

Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

If she crosses the border into Texas, Trump will want a BIGGER wall!!!!

Re:Keep her in Mexico!

[harshath.jr]

lol. funny. not. derivative.

Re: Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

Re:Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most comedy is derivative.

Re:Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

Texas needs the rain. No wall, please.

Re:Keep her in Mexico!

[Qzukk]

The best jokes become integral to our culture.

Re: Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

And the biggest joke of all might become integral to the whole world if the Republicans elect him president.

Re: Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

But Texas doesn't need the Mexicans. In fact, nowhere does, not even Mexico. If this hurricane sinks the whole country of Mexico into the Pacific it would be doing the whole world a favour.

Re: Keep her in Mexico!

[Barsteward]

Without Mexico in the way, Texas would get the full force of the hurricane

Re: Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize the more you democrats mock Trump the more likely he is to be the Republican Nominee? Would you actually prefer Jeb or are you just trying to get a head start on the general election?

Re: Keep her in Mexico!

[dave.haku]

Thanks for the kind words!

Re: Keep her in Mexico!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? They make lots of the stuff that you buy; introduced the world to chocolate, vanilla, tomatoes, corn, etc; great beaches; incredible scenery; hot girls; tequila, cerveza Indio, etc. Just because the Mexican equivalent to poor white trash moves north to do the work the welfare bums in the US are too lazy to do is not a reason to hate an entire country.

How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone understand the Dvorak scale well enough to comment on how this hurricane supposedly broke it and yet it can be accurately put on the scale as an 8.3?

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dvorak is derived from sustained wind speed and pressure. The wind speeds are so high, and the pressures so low on this storm that they exceed the theoretical maximum (8.0) listed for Dvorak.

I assume they calculated it at 8.3 by extrapolating from the existing scale.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'm curious about is the statement that this is 'near the theoretical maximum strength for a tropical cyclone on earth'. How does anyone know that the maximum strength is, and what are the underlying assumptions for making a calculation of the value of that strength?

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[hawguy]

Does anyone understand the Dvorak scale well enough to comment on how this hurricane supposedly broke it and yet it can be accurately put on the scale as an 8.3?

And more importantly, what is it on the Qwerty scale, which is the one that most of us know?

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[khallow]

Glancing at the Wikipedia page, it appears that Dvorak scale goes crudely as a power (~1.25) of the velocity (1 minute sustained). The "theoretical maximum strength" is just bunk.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[KGIII]

That's why it's theoretical, duh! ;-)

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[theskipper]

First, some background. Dvorak is a well-known blowhard tech pundit. His blowhardness is so great that meteorologists unanimously decided to adopt the scale to measure the strength of hurricanes.

To put this in perspective, imagine being in the same room with one Dvorak. Then imagine the same room filled with eight point three Dvoraks. That's how strong this hurricane is.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Ol Olsoc]

Dvorak is derived from sustained wind speed and pressure. The wind speeds are so high, and the pressures so low on this storm that they exceed the theoretical maximum (8.0) listed for Dvorak.

I assume they calculated it at 8.3 by extrapolating from the existing scale.

No - This hurricane goes the whole way to 11.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[fustakrakich]

I am fairly confident they will remain subsonic

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[NicknameUnavailable]

what are the underlying assumptions for making a calculation of the value of that strength?

The same ones underpinning the notion of "climate change" as a catastrophic thing, of course.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Qzukk]

Me? I'm just hoping that the windspeed stays below escape velocity!

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

That a big twinkie!

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your description sort of comes close. The scale was originally based on categories of visual features in satellite imagery, for use when direct wind measurements were not possible. They were roughly correlated with wind over time, but still is mainly a categorization scheme more than a scale. It is like the F and EF scales of tornado, which are roughly based on damage done to various structures. Both sets of scales have a max category, where a hurricane has the strong features or a tornado does the worst listed categories of damage. It is discrete, so there is no higher value on that scale, unless you try fitting a wind speed to it and extrapolating. But that is re-purposing and changing a scale that was not about raw wind speed into one that is.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Tablizer]

And more importantly, what is it on the Qwerty scale

It's a hurricane, so we use the Sqwerty scale instead.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

But how many Laportes is that?

Re: How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how I rank my women, fool.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Qwerty? That's too sophisticated for me. Can someone distill it down to A9 for me?

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[freeze128]

What's the lowest barometric pressure possible? 0

What's the highest wind speed possible? I'm not sure, but I bet it would never exceed Mach 1.

If you're going to invent a scale, make sure that you properly define the bounds. Dvorak is a dummy.

Re: How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that we should ditch all temperature scales and measure everything in Kelvin? And rather than use molarity we should indicate solutions in atoms per litre? And rather than using amps we should indicate electrons per second?

Scales are made to put sensible values on things such that we don't end up having to use arbitrarily large or small numbers. We see it all the time. You're just being an ass.

Oh, and wind speed may not exceed mach 1 on Earth, but colonists of Venus would look back one day and call you a moron for not thinking forward enough to have your scale exceed mach 1.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I was hoping for a car analogy.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the lowest barometric pressure is over about 800mb.

Air can move, you know. There's no walls keeping one weather system separate from the other.

And, no, you CAN get higher than Mach1 in air. Hypercanes would produce such wind speeds. It's impossible in our current atmosphere to manage it because there's not enough energy in the system.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then imagine the same room filled with eight point three Dvoraks.

Oh. My. God. Okay, I get it, you've convinced me we really do have to do something about this. I don't think anyone's ever before described so graphically the potentialy catastrophic effects of climate change.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[I'm New Around Here]

Of course you were.

:^)

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[iggymanz]

it's nonsense, Dvorak scale only goes to 8.0 just as SSHS only goes to cat 5 regardless of strength beyond the minimum required to get to the highest number. there are no cat 6 hurricanes and their are no Dvorak 8.x hurricanes other than x=0

Re: How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[sycodon]

News reports this morning put the max winds at landfall as 165.

Sounds middle of the road to high. Not really record breaking.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dvorak is derived from sustained wind speed and pressure.

No, it is not, and that is the problem. The scale was derived from how to analyse features in satellite imagery when pressure and wind speed were not available. The scale is correlated to wind speed and pressure, because the whole point is to have some sort of scientific, calibrated estimate of wind speed when you can't measure it directly. The scale stops at 8 not because of a theoretical maximum wind speed, but because there is a strongest category of storms for which certain features are visible. The scale doesn't give exact speeds, but usually a range for given effects. It is similar to the reason the Fujita scale for tornadoes and the Mercalli intensity scale for earthquakes can give a rough estimate of windspeed and magnitude, but are distinctly defined in terms of observed damage because that is sometimes all you have to go off of.

Re:How did it fit on a scale it broke?

[TheRealLifeboy]

That's what happens when people start taking Salon seriously on matters of science, like climate and weather in this case. Hell, one can't even take the IPCC, who actually claim to be a science based club (rather than a political action committee, which they really are), seriously on their reports, so go figure!

Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[JoeyRox]

As often happens with Pacific storms since ocean conditions for maintaining strength are rarely favorable near coastal areas in that part of the world. Winds were down over 50mph by the time it made landfall.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[rmdingler]

They've been saying that since the first news reports. Then it hit 33 degree celsius el Nino year coastal water temps and bam...Patricia was a big old five.

My hat is off to modern day weather forecasting.

I can view Doppler from the pocket cellie in a field far enough from town they can't hear you scream, but even now, predicting the path of a hurricane is still probabilistic.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[Rei]

200-165=50?

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[jklovanc]

Winds were down over 50mph by the time it made landfall.

Fifty miles per hour seems like a lot until you realize that means winds are still up to 150mph.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[JoeyRox]

160 MPH was an estimate at landfall based on satellite images. Having been through many hurricanes those estimates are many times wrong, esp for storms that are rapidly weakening as they approach land. It's not well understood but a storm that is strengthening as it approaches land is much more dangerous than a storm that is weakening, irrespective of absolute wind field values.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[Anonymous Coward]

The news I heard said it was down to 190mph (down 10 mph), and the eye looked like it was still there. Yes, it will decrease quickly now, but that will just mean lots of water and storm surge.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure the ocean is to blame for the weakening. Patricia had a very compact inner core and a tiny eye. Strong hurricanes generally undergo eyewall replacement cycles, in which the inner eyewall contracts in and an outer eyewall takes over as the main eyewall. The NHC advisories emphasized the very compact inner core in the 11 AM EDT advisory. The 5 PM EDT advisory mentioned an outer wind maximum, which would be the outer eyewall. It sounds like Patricia was undergoing and eyewall replacement cycle as it made landfall in Mexico. Category 5 hurricanes rarely maintain their maximum intensity for very long. Eyewall replacement cycles typically result in the storm weakening while that takes place. Normally, cool waters associated with the California current (the cool northerly branch of the north Pacific gyre) do result in cool waters in the eastern Pacific, but I don't think that's the primary reason for Patricia weakening. I think an eyewall replacement cycle is primarily responsible for the weakening.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[quax]

Anon comment nailed it, from wunderground:

"Late-afternoon data from a NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft in Patricia indicates that the hurricane is forming concentric eyewalls, presaging an eyewall replacement cycle, where the inner eyewall collapses and is replaced by an outer eyewall that forms out of a spiral band. This process typically weakens the peak winds of the hurricane by up to 20 mph, but spreads out the highest winds of the storm over a larger area. This process typically reduces the wind damage from a storm, but makes a larger storm surge, leading to more storm surge damage."

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[fustakrakich]

Take a look at the terrain and vegetation, and see what a drag it is on the wind.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[Anonymous Coward]

NHC did say that the 190 mph estimate in the last full advisory prior to landfall might be a "generous" estimate. The special advisory indicating that Patricia had made landfall estimated the winds at 165 mph at that time. However, the most recent advisory included an interesting comment:

An unconfirmed sustained wind report of 185 mph and a gust to 211 mph was received from a NOAA/NWS Hydrometeorological Automated Data System (HADS) elevated station (295 ft) at Chamela-Cuixmala, Mexico near the time of landfall. This observation should be considered unofficial until it has been quality controlled.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[Tablizer]

Is that from an "eye" witness?

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[JoeyRox]

When you look at the intensity history of hurricanes hitting that region nearly all of them follow the same pattern as Patricia - significant structural weakening as they approach the coast. This can't be explained as an eyewall replacement cycle.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[Gr8Apes]

Fifty miles per hour seems like a lot until you realize that means winds are still up to 150mph.

It's like driving with the top down on the autobahn.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[Anonymous Coward]

That's incorrect. Patricia weakened primarily due to an eyewall replacement cycle.

There are warm ocean currents on the western side of ocean basins, and cool currents on the eastern side. In the Atlantic, these are called the Gulf Stream and the Canary Current, respectively. And in the Pacific, these are the Kuroshio Current and the California Current. In the eastern north Pacific, the California Current brings cool water south from the far northern Pacific. Under otherwise favorable conditions, hurricanes often strengthen when they move over the Gulf Stream. And they weaken when they move over cool water like the California Current.

However, that's not the case with Patricia. Those waters are at near record warmth right now due to the very strong El Nino conditions.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[sfcat]

Fifty miles per hour seems like a lot until you realize that means winds are still up to 150mph.

It's like driving with the top down on the autobahn.

Its more like standing in the middle of the autobahn while traffic zooms past you. Its not the 150mph wind that gets you, its the 4x4s flying at 100mph that you have to worry about.

Re:Eye collapsed well before reaching shore

[BasilBrush]

It's like driving [at 150mph] with the top down on the autobahn.

Have you ever tried it? Then shut the fuck up.

190 mph winds

[rmdingler]

It'll crush the ocean-front vacation homes of the wealthy,

and,

the only homes of the poor.

Re:190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Mexicans won't be hurt. Two-thirds of them already living in the US.

Re:190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

So?

Re: 190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

With free welfare, medical care, birthright citizenship for their spawn, and everything being translated into Spanish so they don't have to learn English , they are doing better here than in their home country...

Re:190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news bleeding heart liberals cry out for the poor citizens of Pompeii while taking the opportunity to bash the wealthy's island paradise.

God the left can be so moronic.

Re: 190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

And when they finally got their citizenship they bitch about the new wetbacks

Re: 190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

Posters above seem particularly salty :/

Re:190 mph winds

[ultranova]

In other news bleeding heart liberals cry out for the poor citizens of Pompeii while taking the opportunity to bash the wealthy's island paradise.

God the left can be so moronic.

The left cares about people. The right cares about hierarchy. The left are the Jedi: holier-than-thou philosopher king wannabes who nenetheless are all about building a civilization which even the weakest can live with. The right are the Sith: snobs who will do anything to concentrate power either into their own or their master's hands and view cruelty and callousness as something to be carefully cultivated in order to overcome the "weakness" of compassion.

And then there's the Anonymous Cowards who think shitposting on Slashdot makes them Vader or at least a stormtrooper rather than yet another nameless Extended Universe extra.

Re:190 mph winds

[sumdumass]

You should have posted this anonymous so it was obvious.

Re: 190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a shame we can't deport shit like you.

Fuck off and die.

Re:190 mph winds

[Anonymous Coward]

Building a flimsy home on a near-ocean property isn't being poor, it's being stupid. If you can't build something proper on a valuable property, then sell the property and go build something inland where it's cheaper and safer.

Re:190 mph winds

[ultranova]

You should have posted this anonymous so it was obvious.

Anonymous posts are easy to ignore. But politics is serious business because the consequences can be quite devastating. So having one side of the political spectrum go ever further in their attempt to appeal to the worst elements of human nature, while the other desperately pretends everything's fine, is not a good thing.

God's swatting down the rapists

[Anonymous Coward]

God's swatting down the rapists and drug dealers there. Donald Trump's right http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...

Re:God's swatting down the rapists

[amightywind]

Yep. And the welfare shoppers

Ever seen? Based on what.

[schwit1]

Life that could see has been in that area for millions of years.

Re:Ever seen? Based on what.

[jklovanc]

If it hasn't been written down it hasn't been seen. /sarcasm

Re:Ever seen? Based on what.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Ever seen? Based on what.

I wish I was so smart that I would be confused by that commonly used phrase.

With the Republican's AGW...

[Anonymous Coward]

this will happen much more often.

Re: With the Republican's AGW...

[Anonymous Coward]

They truly are the party of death.

Re:With the Republican's AGW...

[rally2xs]

Oh, here we go again. Gloom and doom, etc. etc.

What I always want to know is even with unlimited money, just what do you think you could do about "global warming?" Our whole society runs on energy, and without it our crops don't get grown and they don't get to market. The fuels to make electricity require energy to move them from the oil or coal fields to the generators where they are turned into electricity. And cars and trucks run on oil, there are millions and millions of cars, and nobody has invented the "magic battery" to allow us to run them without emitting.

And if you try to spend unlimited money, you end up throwing people out of work. They go into poverty. What is more dangerous to your health than smoking? Living in poverty is more dangerous than smoking as it can take up to 10 years off your life. Smoking is only "good" for a 7 year reduction in lifespan. Plus, those kids that are living in poverty and experiencing undernourishment will have their brains fail to develop fully, and this damage cannot be reversed later.

And since the Chinese and the Indians don't give a flying F about the global warming scarecrow, they are going to continue to dig coal like it is going out of style. That means that the rest of the world that considers themselves "sane" will have to go to zero emissions. We can't do it. We don't have that tech yet. We may never get that tech. The only way we could achieve zero emissions is kill a really significant portion of the population and go back to animal-powered subsistence farming like the 1800's, but of course the lifespans would be like the 1800's. Izzat what we want to do? And, as many scientists claim, the AGW theory may yet be a hoax, and if so, we could kill millions for nothing.

People can whine about global warming all day, but unless they have a SOLUTION, I don't want to hear it. "Doing a little bit" that is insanely costly and doesn't amount to 0.05 degrees of reduction is just torturing the citizens for no good reason. I want a full-up, "completely stop the warming" solution or I say we don't spend a damned dime toward it. Half measures just harm all.

Re:With the Republican's AGW...

[tompaulco]

Was it a SPECIFIC republican that created this storm, or did all Republicans have a hand in it?

Re: With the Republican's AGW...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please help us all out by stop breathing. Blaming the Republicans for every thing is just beyond ignorant. Do you honestly believe that democrats are innocence just because they say something different?

Re: With the Republican's AGW...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the Democrats are trying to change the system and get international agreements to have others work together to solve this problem. The GOP deniers are just in it to get money for their campaigns or because they get money from the dirty energy companies themselves.

Oh

[Anonymous Coward]

ManBearPig grows stronker erry day/

Get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what I predicted when I did my Ph.D in Climatology: a chaotic system will produce much larger storms than ever before. 30 years later it turns out I was right!

Re:Get used to it

[Layzej]

Here's an interesting video where scientists explain why global warming intensifies storms and precipitation: https://youtu.be/2K2s2EjsXJI

Re:Get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations Captain Obvious. Maybe Obama will invite you to the whitehouse like he did with the kid that invented a digital clock.

Re:Get used to it

[jklovanc]

a chaotic system will produce much larger storms than ever before.

I love it when people use phrases like "ever before" when they actually mean "in our brief recorded history".

Re:Get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists? Youtube? I'm convinced.

Re:Get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant "ever before" I got my Ph.D. Did I mention I was a Scientist? With a Ph.D.?

Re:Get used to it

[KGIII]

You know the AC really isn't a Climatologist, right?

Re:Get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly I'm biting on a troll, but I'm going to do so anyway for the benefit of people (like you) who aren't meteorologists or climatologists.

Patricia isn't a particularly large storm. In fact, the inner core was extremely compact. I'll assume you're discussing intensity, though. It's plausible to assume that, all other things equal, warming oceans due to climate change will result in stronger hurricanes. Of course, all things aren't equal, and things like vertical wind shear and mid-level moisture will also change due to climate change.

I haven't a clue what your chaotic system comment is about, though. The atmosphere is a chaotic system, but that simply means that small changes in the state of the system will result in rapidly diverging states in time. Perturbations to the initial state will grow over time, placing limits on the predictability of the system. That's what it means for the system to be chaotic. It is irrelevant to the typical or maximum strength and intensity of hurricanes.

Re:Get used to it

[cyn1c77]

I meant "ever before" I got my Ph.D. Did I mention I was a Scientist? With a Ph.D.?

Did you publish your PhD anonymously like your /. posts?

If so, that must make tracking your citations a real bitch.

Re:Get used to it

[tompaulco]

Au contraire, it makes it really easy to make any old statement of what you predicted, because som AC somewhere undoubtedly said that, and the exact opposite of that. You can't possibly be wrong if you choose your targets after the arrow hits.

Re:Get used to it

[tompaulco]

This is what I predicted when I did my Ph.D in Climatology: a chaotic system will produce much larger storms than ever before. 30 years later it turns out I was right!

You knew this was going to happen and yet you didn't warn the people of Mexico. You should be sent to jail.

Re:Get used to it

[tompaulco]

You know the AC really isn't a Climatologist, right?

It doesn't matter. If you predict a system will become more chaotic, you will ALWAYS be right. Even if it becomes LESS chaotic you are still correct, because becoming LESS chaotic is only possible if something else became MORE chaotic.

Re:Get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally someone who gets it! I like your style mister!

Re:Get used to it

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you rule out the existence of a single 8.3+ hurricane in the entire 186 million year span of the Mesozoic era? I didn't know you could make such a statement. Climatology is much more amazing than I imagined. A true gem among the sciences.

I've yet to see mention..

[subk]

..of the potential for flooding in Mexico City. Also, what kind of damage does a 50mph wind do to a shanty-town?

Re:I've yet to see mention..

[jblues]

..of the potential for flooding in Mexico City. Also, what kind of damage does a 50mph wind do to a shanty-town?

Here's the classification system that we use in the Philippines, where there on average 20 Typhoon's (your Hurricane's eastern twisted sister) per year. It describes the predicted effect at different intensity grades on builds ranging from very light to heavy construction materials. Note that metric units are used.

Re:I've yet to see mention..

[plopez]

I think Mexico City is safe from storm surge. If it isn't neither is the SW US.

Re:I've yet to see mention..

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be, but Guadelajara is a different story.

Re:I've yet to see mention..

[Anonymous Coward]

Central Texas is expected to get 7 inches of rain this weekend, partly out of this.

Re:I've yet to see mention..

[gwolf]

Oh, I live in Mexico City. We are over 1,000Km away. We haven't even got bad weather (mild rain yesterday night, beautiful day today).

And about shanty towns... Of course we have some. But most of the city is much better built than what I've seen from the USA. No wonder we have that many 500 year old buildings in great shape.

It's cold out here in New England tonight

[PopeRatzo]

Climate change is just something the SJW scientists made up to take away our masculinity and now Star Wars is all about a black person. Not a coincidence.

This is a confirmed fact.

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[KGIII]

I thought I told you, yesterday, to stop picking on the kids???

*chuckles*

Meh, what's the point of accumulating /. Karma if you don't spend it once in a while?

That Obama's a dirty Kenyan negro and needs to get back to Chicago and do some community activism instead of ruining our global environment!

I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. I'm aiming for "off-topic." How 'bout you?

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[Anonymous Coward]

Very gay post there.

Re: It's cold out here in New England tonight

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight. I think you're joking but my post is 110% serious.

We should do like the UKIP and pay for one way tickets to send all the scum back to their home countries. Obama can go back to Kenya, the Mexicans can go back to Mexico, and so on.

And I thought global cooling was the big thing for this year? Seems they can't even make up their minds which scaremongering to use!

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[PopeRatzo]

Meh, what's the point of accumulating /. Karma if you don't spend it once in a while?

I like the cut of your jib.

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the day storms, like boats, were named after women. Then the SJW environmentalists came in and said that half of them had to have male names.

The reason is that they read op-ed pieces in the New York Times while they were drinking Chardonnay after driving home from the sushi restaurant in their Volvos.

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[KGIII]

And I got my coveted off-topic mod! I luff this game.

Also, having seen your post concerning comedians. If you like highbrow, check out Emo Philips.

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[KGIII]

I dunno if it has as much fun when you're an AC? Burning karma is kind of fun once in a while. I don't usually troll or anything but I do go way off topic just to amuse myself and others. Hell, I haven't even done my daily novella yet. ;-) Unfortunately, I'm tired and the little lady wanted me to put my toys away ten minutes ago.

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[Anonymous Coward]

It was fun switching sides and seeing how many of their licks I could string together :)

Re: It's cold out here in New England tonight

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama can go back to Kenya, the Mexicans can go back to Mexico...

Can we send Yoko back to the Japs?

Re: It's cold out here in New England tonight

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's start with you, go on back to Nazi Germany.

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Climate change is just something the SJW scientists made up to take away our masculinity and now Star Wars is all about a black person. Not a coincidence.

This is a confirmed fact.

The 'Troll' moderation of this comment suggests that it more 'Insightful' than it is 'Funny'.

Re:It's cold out here in New England tonight

[PopeRatzo]

Emo is a Chicago boy. He used to warm up for bands in clubs around town back in the day before he made it to the comedy joints.

Re: It's cold out here in New England tonight

[Anonymous Coward]

And which country would we deport you to? Unless of course you're Ojibwa or one of the other indigenous peoples?

"Third-lowest barometer reading ever recorded"

[Solandri]

That's not quite so exclusive as it sounds. There are a lot of storms with the same barometer reading

870mm - Typhoon Tip (1979)
875mm - Typhoon June (1975)
875mm - Typhoon Nora (1973)
877mm - Typhoon Ida (1958)
880mm - Typhoon Kit (1966)
880mm - Typhoon Rita (1978)
880mm - Typhoon Vanessa (1984)
880mm - Hurricane Patricia (2015)

The 1970s were a bad decade for storms in the West Pacific.

Re:"Third-lowest barometer reading ever recorded"

[DevilM]

BTW, it turns out that many of the readings from the typhoons in the 60s were estimated incorrectly. See Black, P.G., (1992): "Evolution of maximum wind estimates in typhoons" ICSU/WMO International Symposium on Tropical Cyclone Disasters, October 12-16, 1992, Beijing.

Re:"Third-lowest barometer reading ever recorded"

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing pressure and wind speed aren't the same thing.

Re:"Third-lowest barometer reading ever recorded"

[AK Marc]

But are nearly perfectly correlated, so yes, effectively the same thing. It's the winds pulling away from the center that make the pressure lower there.

This is a small fast storm

[trout007]

The hurricane force winds only extend about 25 miles which is way below the average of 100 miles. Katrina was around 125 miles. So while the peak winds here are fast it's a very small storm. Almost midway between a hurricane and tornado.

Re:This is a small fast storm

[Anonymous Coward]

Wilma was bigger than Katrina, and it did relatively little damage in Mexico, where it sat for two days. I was there, it was... interesting. It did a lot more damage whizzing through Florida in only 5 hours, even though it was weaker and smaller. American contractors should be required to read about the Three Little Pigs. The west coast is more mountainous, the winds die fast, but the rain doesn't, so flash flooding is probably the bigger problem.

Re:This is a small fast storm

[Xyrus]

How about some perspective then?

The storm was packing 200 mph winds. That is an EF5 tornado. An EF5 tornado is capable of tearing asphalt off the ground, leaving nothing but slabs where sturdy homes used to be, tossing big rigs around like toothpicks, tearing tree out of the ground and shredding them, so on and so forth. Take a look at some before an after pics of an EF5 tornado.

An EF5 tornado will rarely approach a diameter of 1 mile, and is usually over in a couple of minutes.

This storm was an EF5 that would have wiped something like New York City off the map. Not just a little path through downtown, but the whole damn city. Those winds would have lasted for an hour or more. You can't even begin to imagine what that would be like.

That "only" would have been catastrophic if it hit a population center. Fortunately, it didn't (and several conditions occurred that manged to weaken the storm a bit before landfall).

Dodged a bullet this time, but we keep reloading the gun.

Weather fine here, Hurricane Patricia is fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Just those metorologists trying to scare up more research funding.

8.3

[fustakrakich]

Coincidence? I think not.

Re:8.3

[Bing Tsher E]

The FAT filesystem is a symptom of climate change.

NOAA & White House Declare Patricia Planet Kil

[Anonymous Coward]

President Obama with council from his Greatest Born Science Advisor Dr. Holdren and NOAA declare Hurricane Patricia a Planet Killer Storm.

The Alarm is sounded.

All High Government Officials are required to evacuate Washington DC to a secret bunker in Virginia at once.

Pres. Obama has ordered SAC to dispatch 52 B2s armed with thermonuclear warhead bombs to destroy the Hurricane Patricia at once.

Although early projections by SAC call for the killing of 300 million Mexican citizens SAC calculate the deaths, justified.

Hurricane Patricia will gouge a trench 50 km deep within the North American Plate, as Holdern projects. The in-filling waters of the Atlantic and Pacific will cause massive steam explosions and breakage of the plate causing deadly primal magma to rise and destroy humanity.

White House says, "This is Humanity Extinction Event in 24 hours."

The National Security Advisor advised Obama to masturbate in order to preserve his sperm for future generations of homo sapiens sapiens and the National Democratic Party of the USA.

God Save Us the National Democratic Party.

Fuck you otherwise.

Ha ha

Theoretical maximum strength?

[Anonymous Coward]

Patricia is now very close to the theoretical maximum strength for a tropical cyclone on planet Earth [citation needed]

Weather / Climate

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess in this case, weather == climate right? And the lack of hurricanes the last few years was just weather != climate. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/7...

Hurricane Opal

[EthanDemurs]

I was raised in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and I remember Hurricane Opal(1995) like it was yesterday. The highest wind speeds were captured just blocks from my home on Hurlburt Air Force base at 145 mph. I've seen, firsthand, the absolute destruction these wind speeds can cause. Homes built near the water that were supposed to be hurricane proof were absolutely leveled. Our 4 lane highway running through Okaloosa Island was torn away in massive chunks. The day after the storm boats of all sizes were found in peoples homes, parking lots, and many other random places around the city. I hope these people have strict building codes and have taken the best possible precautions available to them, things are going to be ugly.

Chicken Noodle News

[Anonymous Coward]

Chicken Noodle News hyperbole much?

hurricane ever observed in the eastern Pacific or Atlantic oceans.

No shit Sherlock, otherwise it would by called a typhoon, or a cyclone. And there have been many comparable/bigger ones of those.

How does Timothy manage to filter in only the garbage submissions?

God vs. Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

As Trump has factually indicated, G & G are responsible for 9/11.
God is doing his damnest to take out that family in Texas, even if it means thousands of Mexico innocents perish in the process.

Thanks Obama!

Death of Planet Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Planet killer hurricane Patricia continues her murderous destruction across Mexico. USGS scientists report observing volcanic eruption on the seafloor in the Pacific southwest of Mexico, with earthquakes up to 11 occurring into central Mexico. This is vital information indicating the destruction of the North American Plate and redirection of mantle flow. Medical services in Mexico report at least 2 billion dead and 6 billion casualties. The UN has order the immediate evacuation of remaining living human beings in North and Central America. UN advises US states and Mexico departments that NATO air forces have been mobilized to kill all remaining human beings to spare them death by Patricia. UN General Secretary Bon Ki Moon joyously announces that the IPCC mandate of carbon elimination has been met to save the remaining planet Earth while there is still a few days before total destruction. -- Reuters

This is Terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Where will Mexico find any low wage workers to clean up?

Jim Stone lives in Mexico, says there was no wind!

[Thing 1]

Jim Stone, Freelance Journalist, is reporting that this storm is a hoax. So much of a hoax, in fact, that NOAA personnel have been told they will be charged with a crime if they tell the truth.

His site is here: http://www.jimstone.is/circumv...

Hmmm

[koan]

Patricia is now very close to the theoretical maximum strength for a tropical cyclone on planet Earth

Is that based on previous observations of Earth's weather before climate change started building?

Some of the predictions I've seen for "worst case" storms imply they could be much larger.

Side note: I misspelled "imply" as "implie" the spell checker gave me a possible correction of "pimplike" for "implie".

pimplike....

No Calrostrophy, Just Minor Damage, No Bother

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the predictions of catastrophe are seriously all wrong.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-24/patricia-spares-mexico-worst-hurricane-fades-to-tropical-storm

So NOAA's, White House's and IPCC's alarms were nothing more than pissing in the rain.

Ha ha

All the fault of the republicans.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes this once in a millennium global super storm was caused by Rush Limbaugh's insistence on heating his multimillion dollar cottage with open hearth coal furnaces. I personally saw Donald Trump blowing the storm over to the coast of Mexico toward all the brown people. That is just what he does.

I can't wait for NPR to do their expose on how global super storms are causing disproportionate havoc on Latino's and African Americans, and if your house did not get wiped out, you are being unsympathetic to the disadvantaged and need to die.

 

Strongest Hurricane Ever Seen In Eastern Pacific

[Anonymous Coward]

Strongest Hurricane Ever Seen In Eastern Pacific

was a dud.

Bush's fault.

get with the program

[Anonymous Coward]

that's a common core math estimate