Otis in October

It is late October, while people are glued to the TV screen to watch the fall baseball season—ALCS and NLCS. As a neutral fan, I have been more rewarded than, say, a die-hard Orioles fan, whose team got eliminated in just a matter of days, because I would have the opportunity to watch the maximum number of games. Luckily, both championship series went into the seventh game. When in the midst of the sports craze, something truly extraordinary from the left-field happened:

A category 5 hurricane.

A category 5 in the Pacific!

A category 5 in the Pacific that fooled the best meteorologists!!

Figure 1: Hurricane Ortis making landfall near Acapulco, Mexico

The result was widespread devastation across this tourist town, including 27 confirmed deaths. A witness who endured this ordeal reported that “it was like living through a two-hour earthquake”. The more sobering part of this tragedy is that no one predicted it; when the hurricane landed, there was a 4,000-attendee mining convention in town, let along throngs of tourists.

I have been following the hurricane season since when I was in elementary school. It is common knowledge that the majority of them occur in the Atlantic. I hardly recall any major Pacific hurricanes. What I do remember are the calm and warm waters around Channel Islands National Park, this little-known jewel set only an hour from Los Angeles that my family visited last summer. I fondly remember the leisurely kayak ride I had with my younger brother, and the lush, long seaweeds that bobbled just under the surface of the sea.

Figure 2: Kayaking near the Channel Islands, June 2022

Acapulco, Mexico, if I measure it correctly on the map, is about 1,600 miles south of the Channel Islands. I also heard from the news that the water has to be sufficiently warm (at least 80 degrees) to form and sustain a hurricane. Given the time of the year I would not question that the water is warm. The question still remains, how could the best models from the most powerful computers mis-predict this event?

A meteorologist once claimed that “extreme weather is the finger print of climate change”. While my previous interest has been long-range forecasting, I am now convinced that short-range forecasting of such catastrophic events is also of paramount importance.

References.

1. 1. WSJ Podcast, Oct 30, 2023

1. 1. https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-27/exodus-from-acapulco-after- hurricane-otis-it-was-like-living-through-a-two-hour-earthquake.ht