‘Potentially Catastrophic’ Category 5 Hurricane Patricia To Slam West Coast Of Mexico Friday
Source: Washington Post
By Jason Samenow October 22 at 11:00 PM
Over the past day, Hurricane Patricia has explosively intensified from a tropical storm to a monstrous category five hurricane with 160 mph winds. Patricia is forecast to make landfall on Mexico’s west central coast late Friday with destructive winds, torrents of rain, and a devastating storm surge.
The rate of the storm’s intensification in day’s time is nothing short of historic. In the process, Patricia morphed from a loosely organized conglomeration of thunderstorms to the planet’s strongest and most wicked class of storm.
“Patricia is estimated to have intensified 85 kt [100 mph] in the past 24 hours,” the National Hurricane Center said in its 11 p.m. update Thursday. “This is a remarkable feat, with only Linda of 1997 intensifying at this rate in the satellite era.”
Centered about 200 miles offshore the west coast of central of Mexico, Patricia threatens to come ashore somewhere between San Blas and Punta San Telmo, where a hurricane warning is in effect. This zone includes the resort town of Puerto Vallarta, with a population of just over 200,000 people.
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just due to the strength of the low pressure (record).
I was on vacation in Acapulco back in '89 when Cat 1 Cosme literally made landfall right over top of the city (where the eye passed over us overnight) and although we were fine (the hotel lost power and had some water in the open-air lobby) and there was a lot of rain, the folks living on the other side of the (famous) ridge of hills that line the coast, experienced massive flooding and damage (and some 30 lives were lost). A Cat 5 would be unimaginable for the coastal areas. There is an expectation that the mountains of Mexico will help to shred the storm apart as it moves inland but I just feel pain for those in the path of this. 
The NWS here are seeing signs that we may even get some remnant rains from Patricia up here in Philly and along the east coast some time in the middle of next week.
that featured Katrina.
It's almost like 2005 is a mirror image of 2015 - with the records in the Atlantic (2005) vs the records in the Pacific (2015).
