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Hurricane warnings are in effect in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where Hurricane Agatha is expected to make landfall on Monday near the city of Mazunte.
The National Hurricane Center warns that the storm could cause “dangerous” coastal flooding and “life-threatening hurricane-force winds” near landfall. He also warns that “sudden, life-threatening mudslides” are possible as the storm sweeps through southern Mexico, with mountainous terrain likely to see up to 20 inches of rain.
Agatha is the first storm named in the eastern Pacific or Atlantic basins in 2022, heralding an imminent increase in tropical storm activity during the summer.
There is also the possibility that the intensification of the storm may become problematic in the Gulf of Mexico. Miami National Hurricane Center meteorologists estimate a 30 percent chance of a possible redevelopment.
Agatha became a hurricane on Sunday at 8 a.m. Eastern Time. There is a hurricane warning between Salina Cruz and Lagunas de Chacahua, Mexico, with hurricane warnings and tropical storm warnings covering stretches of coastline on either side.
At 11 a.m., the Hurricane Center said the storm was “strengthening rapidly,” with maximum winds of up to 85 mph.
Agatha was about 200 miles off the coast of Puerto Angel, Mexico, on Sunday morning, where conditions are favorable for the storm to intensify further. According to the Hurricane Center, the storm is stirring over the hot water, helping to feed the storm, and there is an absence of higher level hostile winds.
The Hurricane Center predicts that the storm will make landfall Monday night with sustained maximum winds of 110 mph, or as a high-end Category 2 hurricane. The strongest winds will affect a small region of the coast east of the center when the storm hits land, where there is possible serious damage.
Tropical storm force winds, capable of causing minor damage, could begin along the coast in the hurricane warning zone on Sunday afternoon or early Monday morning. Tropical storm force winds extend about 80 miles from the center of the storm.
Agatha will also generate a substantial ocean wave, or an increase in storm-driven water above normally dry land, which can flood coastal communities. The biggest wave is expected near and just east of where the storm hits land. Big, destructive waves will accompany the wave.
More worrying for inland areas, especially on higher ground, will be heavy rains. Widespread rainfall of 10 to 16 inches is forecast for Oaxaca, with localized amounts of 20 inches on high ground. This could cause mudslides and sudden flooding, potentially isolating more rural communities. A general 5 to 10 inches with a total of 15 inches is likely in the state of Chiapas.
According to Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, Agatha is the first hurricane in the eastern Pacific since 2015. Andres also reached hurricane strength on May 29 of that year.
Agatha is likely to become only the third hurricane in the eastern Pacific to make landfall in May. If it crosses the coast with sustained maximum winds of at least 100 miles per hour (the current forecast is winds of 110 miles per hour), it would become the strongest storm to hit land so early in the season from the eastern Pacific. write Jeff Masters, a meteorologist. and hurricane specialist at Yale Climate Connections.
In the event that Agatha hits Mexico as a major Category 3 hurricane, it would be the first for May.
Possible redevelopment of the gulf
The Agatha is likely to decay rapidly as it moves inland from its ocean heat source earlier this week. It will discharge most of its moisture, no longer fed by the heating from below. On Tuesday, it will be a shell of his old one.
From then on, the remaining turn of the storm could meander through Mexico and emerge into the gulf, somewhere in Campeche Bay, in the middle or late part of this week. The National Hurricane Center estimates a 30 percent chance of redevelopment as low pressure rises again.
Water temperatures are mild enough to withstand the organization of low pressure; whether it is able to consolidate and organize is more a matter of higher atmospheric winds, which could initially be hostile to development. They can relax on some Thursdays and Fridays, which could allow for a small window of opportunity.
2 am EDT May 29: A large, low-pressure mid-week zone could form in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico or northwestern Caribbean Sea. Currently, this system is unlikely to become a tropical cyclone for the next 5 days. More: pic.twitter.com/EWUcxGcS2m
– National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) May 29, 2022
Gulf Coast residents should control this system.
The convention dictates that if Agatha’s central vortex remains intact when it reaches the Gulf of Mexico, the storm would retain its name. This has happened before: Hurricane Otto moved from the Caribbean through Costa Rica and Nicaragua before emerging over the Pacific as a tropical storm in November 2016. It made landfall as a Category 3, but maintained the its name even after entering a new ocean basin.
If the vortex dissipated and a new low-pressure system developed from the remnants of Agatha, it would be named Alex and become the first so-called storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
The hurricane season officially begins on June 1 in the Atlantic, and long-term forecasters are sounding the alarm over a seventh consecutive above-average hurricane season.
NOAA is forecasting its seventh consecutive Atlantic hurricane season