In record-breaking rapid intensification, Otis landfalls as Category 5 hurricane
The 2023 hurricane season has been one for the record-books. One of major themes to this year’s season has been rapid intensification – when a storm’s maximum sustained winds increase by at least 55 km/h in just 24 hours.
Multiple storms this season have even made it onto the top charts for storms with the fastest rate of rapid intensification, with Idalia and Lee in the Atlantic, as well as Jova in the eastern Pacific. Now, joining Jova on the list is none other than Otis.
Hurricane Otis made landfall overnight Tuesday into the early hours of Wednesday around Acapulco, Mexico as a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 270 km/h. Acapulco used to be a popular tourist destination and still boasts a growing population of about one million residents. Otis is the first Category 5 storm to ever make landfall in this region of Mexico. In fact, no storms have ever made landfall here with winds greater than Category 1 strength.
RELATED: Hurricane Otis set to hit Mexico's Acapulco as Category 5 storm
Otis was supposed to be no exception. On Monday night, forecasters had predicted that Otis would make landfall as a tropical storm with winds of 105 km/h. However, much to everyone’s surprise on Tuesday, Otis suddenly began to rapidly intensify, increasing its sustained winds from 105 km/h to 233 km/h - an increase of 128 km/h - in under 12 hours. This put the cyclone from a tropical storm to a major Category 4 hurricane in less than half a day. From there it only intensified further to Category 5 as it made its catastrophic landfall.
Otis’s intensification is now the strongest observed in the eastern Pacific basin since 1966 when satellite imagery first began. Prior to this, Hurricane Patricia in 2015 held the record with its 120 km/h increase in winds in a 12 hour span.
With files from Matthew Grinter, a meteorologist with The Weather Network.
