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Mexico is waking up to this cat 5 hurricane

Days

Commentator
From what I can gather, it made landfall about 50 miles north of Manzanillo, which harbors Mexico's biggest container port on the Pacific coast, and also about 130 miles south of Puerto Vallarta. The hurricane moved straight inland to the mountains and weakened to cat 4 and i think it just became a cat 3, which is still a major hurricane! Is it possible for a hurricane to cross the nation of Mexico and survive into the Gulf? Before Patricia I would have said "no way" ... but this sucker just might reform in the Gulf, we'll find out Sunday.
No, this hurricane is steering north so it will die inland, but it will send more rain at Texas, which they don't particularly need at the moment.
 

Jen

Senator
From what I can gather, it made landfall about 50 miles north of Manzanillo, which harbors Mexico's biggest container port on the Pacific coast, and also about 130 miles south of Puerto Vallarta. The hurricane moved straight inland to the mountains and weakened to cat 4 and i think it just became a cat 3, which is still a major hurricane! Is it possible for a hurricane to cross the nation of Mexico and survive into the Gulf? Before Patricia I would have said "no way" ... but this sucker just might reform in the Gulf, we'll find out Sunday.
With mountains in Mexico I'm surprised it hasn't fallen apart by now. Interesting to watch. Supposedly it's a small storm but it's wound very tightly. How in the world did that happen?
 

Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
Andrew was expensive, but not really that strong. When you drag a cat 2 hurricane into the most expensive neighborhood in America, people talk about it like it was a big deal. Which it was, moneywise....
Andrew was a Cat 5.

http://stormfacts.net/handrew.htm
If there was one lucky thing to be said about Andrew, it was that the storm was compact: just 60 miles across (in comparison, Katrina was over 400 miles wide and 2003’s Hurricane Isabel, another Category 5 storm, was over 800 miles wide). But, the winds of Andrew were fierce: 165 mph, making it a Category 5. The 1935 Unnamed Labor Day Storm (also a Category 5) was similar to Andrew as it was very compact (the eye of that storm was reported to be only about 8 miles wide).
 

Days

Commentator
Andrew was a Cat 5.

http://stormfacts.net/handrew.htm
If there was one lucky thing to be said about Andrew, it was that the storm was compact: just 60 miles across (in comparison, Katrina was over 400 miles wide and 2003’s Hurricane Isabel, another Category 5 storm, was over 800 miles wide). But, the winds of Andrew were fierce: 165 mph, making it a Category 5. The 1935 Unnamed Labor Day Storm (also a Category 5) was similar to Andrew as it was very compact (the eye of that storm was reported to be only about 8 miles wide).
For some reason I remember it as a cat 2, maybe that was the strength when it ravaged Coral Gables. I didn't follow that storm, I just read about it afterwards. Tks, Max, I've always thought the only thing big about Andrew was the $damage, now I realize why everyone was including that storm in their list of dangerous storms.
 

Days

Commentator
With mountains in Mexico I'm surprised it hasn't fallen apart by now. Interesting to watch. Supposedly it's a small storm but it's wound very tightly. How in the world did that happen?
I had been watching that in this storm. Usually the eye widens or stays the same size, this storm was constantly tightening its eye until it closed it completely when it was still category 4. After the pilot flew the eye and measured it, he remarked how usually there's a theatre effect in the eye, you can see all around and all the way up to blue sky; but not in this storm, the eye was filled with lightening and he couldn't hardly recognize it, and they had to work fast to get the equipment in place to measure the eyewall because the eye was so small.

I'm thinking that there was something to that dynamic of the tightening eye that made the storm set the record for sustained wind speeds. You know when a skater does a spin and brings her arms in tight to her body it speeds up her rotation: that kind of thing.
 

Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
For some reason I remember it as a cat 2, maybe that was the strength when it ravaged Coral Gables. I didn't follow that storm, I just read about it afterwards. Tks, Max, I've always thought the only thing big about Andrew was the $damage, now I realize why everyone was including that storm in their list of dangerous storms.
Due to the water table, no one in Florida has basements. All homes are built on slabs. Homestead was reduced to slabs along with parts of Coral Gables and every other community in it's narrow path.

It was pretty much a 60 mile wide tornado, a very unusual storm. Just the first of many record setting Cat 5s in the last few decades.
 

Days

Commentator
Due to the water table, no one in Florida has basements. All homes are built on slabs. Homestead was reduced to slabs along with parts of Coral Gables and every other community in it's narrow path.

It was pretty much a 60 mile wide tornado, a very unusual storm. Just the first of many record setting Cat 5s in the last few decades.
Andrew wrecked a whole lot of heliports on the roofs of those castles. I wonder if the Banyon trees recovered? Those trees are so cool, that's what I think attracted the super rich to that area.
 

Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
Andrew wrecked a whole lot of heliports on the roofs of those castles. I wonder if the Banyon trees recovered? Those trees are so cool, that's what I think attracted the super rich to that area.
I always liked Banyon trees. The smooth bark impressed me plus the tangled growth. In Texas Crepe Myrtles come close to the bark. They have more color, but not the "exotic" factor.

One of the other things I miss about Florida (one of the few) are Mangoes. I only saw them in Key West, but it was great picking them off trees for a snack.
 

Days

Commentator
I always liked Banyon trees. The smooth bark impressed me plus the tangled growth. In Texas Crepe Myrtles come close to the bark. They have more color, but not the "exotic" factor.

One of the other things I miss about Florida (one of the few) are Mangoes. I only saw them in Key West, but it was great picking them off trees for a snack.
When I lived in North Miami Beach, I remember walking to the local convenient store and they had a cooler filled with plain plastic half gallon jugs, no label, these were filled daily from the orange crop, they tapped the fresh squeeze that was bound for the market, they sold them for a buck each. They were gone every night and they were replaced every morning... until it snowed on Christmas Eve, that killed the whole crop for the year. My mom and younger brother live in southern Orlando close by to my EX, the first wife. I should ask him if he gets dibs on any crops. I remember trying this star shaped tropical fruit, it was okay, they have exotic fruit down there, but what I loved about Miami was the Cuban rice and black beans and their coffee, oh my god, that coffee was other worldly good.

This hurricane Patricia probably didn't kill many because is went in where the crops were planted... bet it messed up the crop something awful.
 
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