Agatha couldn’t pull an Otto: Hurricanes crossing from one ocean to another a rare event
Hurricane season hasn’t officially begun and yet a new hurricane first almost took place.
On Monday, Hurricane Agatha, which formed in the Pacific Ocean, made landfall over Puerto Angel, Mexico. Agatha dissipated over land and is now remnants of the storm. However, those remnants have a 70% chance of reforming into the first Atlantic tropical storm of the season within the next five days.
If it does form, it would take on the name Alex.
If Agatha had remained intact it would have been the first storm ever to have crossed from the eastern Pacific to the Atlantic basin intact, according to the National Hurricane Center’s spokeswoman Maria Torres. However, there was an Atlantic hurricane that survived the trip over Central America and entered the Pacific blue.
In November of 2016, Hurricane Otto formed in the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall over the southern tip of Nicaragua as a Category 3 major hurricane. Before, making its way off Central America, Otto was responsible for 18 deaths. After traveling over the land mass, Otto remained intact as a tropical storm, retaining its name, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s records.
That meant the 2016 Pacific hurricane season had two “o”-named storms, with Orlene having formed two months earlier in the middle of the Pacific, reaching Category 2 strength before dissipating after a week, the NOAA’s records show.
Currently, Agatha’s remains are projected to reform, and could make landfall over Florida, according to several computer storms.
The Atlantic hurricane season begins Wednesday.
