Odile Makes Landfall

The active Eastern Pacific hurricane season that was discussed in the EIWN post a few weeks ago continues to produce – another major hurricane was spun up this week. This time it was hurricane Odile, a category four at its maximum strength, which bottomed out at a pressure of 922mb. This hurricane, however, headed towards the Baja Peninsula and made landfall there as a category three hurricane on Sunday night.

Cabo San Lucas was one of the resorts hardest hit as Odile brought winds of 205km/h upon landfall. As expected with a hurricane of this magnitude, significant damage was done to infrastructure as well as three deaths were reported. About 240,000 residents lost power during the event prompting school closures and flight cancellations; causing major headaches to travellers in the popular tourist destination. Odile eventually weakened into a tropical storm as it made its way further north, interacting with terrain and beginning to get torn apart by shear. Even though Odile had weakened substantially, the storm was not done causing trouble to people in the US Southwest, bringing with it its plume of tropical moisture. Reports of flooded houses and washed out roads were coming out of southern New Mexico and Arizona on Thursday and Friday where as much as 100mm fell in some towns (Sept. average rainfall is around 30-50mm in the region). Streams quickly became rivers and one resident perished as he got swept away by the floodwaters. It’s not all bad news to the US Southwest though, as drought continues to improve in the region.

There’s already another storm; Polo, churning in the East Pacific but it is not expected to take the same path as Odile did. No other tropical storms are expected to impact the Baja Peninsula in the near future.