re: #132 lawhawk

This morning, the hurricane hunters found a low pressure reading of 880mbs.

That’s huge, as is the fact that they’re predicting it to come ashore not only as a Cat 5, but as a Cat 5 with 200 mph winds. That’d be the strongest storm to ever make landfall in the Western Hemisphere as long as folks have been keeping records. The storm went from tropical depression to Category 5 in 24 hours.

It would make Patricia the strongest storm ever to hit North America. Did I say ever. Yeah, I did. By any measure, it’s stronger than Andrew, Camille, Katrina, Rita, Sandy, Floyd, and any other notable storms that come to mind. Higher winds than any of the other storms either. Only a handful of storms, usually in the Western Pacific have had the combination of low pressure and high winds that Patricia does. That tells you how rare this storm is.

And it has the potential to be devastating as its path would take it across Mexico, dumping tremendous amounts of rain causing widespread flooding, landslides, and power outages. Millions of people are in the threatened area, and there’s a potential for significant loss of life as a result of the storm even with reasonable precautions.

Yeah, sounds like this one is the biggest ever recorded.

I’ve mentioned I like Formula One racing and the U.S. Grand Prix is this weekend at Circuit of the Americas in Austin Texas. Forecasts are for rain, heavy rain and deluge all weekend. Not good for the event, but that is not a big thing compared to the danger this storm presents for Mexico and even the flooding expected in Texas, etc.

I hope the folks in this storm’s path can get through this.