CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE OTIS Acapulco, Mexico

[nsaspook]

TL;DR Summary

missed forecast?

What happened to the forecasting on this one?

 

[berkeman]

TL;DR Summary: missed forecast?

What happened to the forecasting on this one?

Climate change, apparently. Not in the prediction database parameters...

[Reference needed]...

EDIT/UPDATE -- Not that CNN is a great technical reference, but the missed forecast due to the existing models is discussed here: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/24/weather/hurricane-otis-acapulco-mexico/index.html

 

[nsaspook]

 

[Astronuc]

I heard that it rapidly intensified more rapidly than previous hurricanes/cyclones.
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/24/hurricane-otis-acapulco-mexico

The big picture: The storm "explosively intensified" on Tuesday into the evening, with its maximum sustained winds jumping by 110 mph in just 24 hours — a mark only exceeded in modern times by Hurricane Patricia in 2015, per NHC. It remained a powerful Category 5 hurricane through landfall early Wednesday.

• The storm's 12-hour intensification rate of 80 mph was the fastest in the eastern North Pacific during the satellite era, per meteorologist Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University.

Forecasters did warn of a potentially damaging storm.

I would expect that they will have to recalibrate models.

Also, the location where it came ashore is apparently unusual for this type of storm, much like it was unusual, but not impossible, for an extra-tropical hurricane like Sandy to travel into New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hurricane-otis-came-out-of-nowhere-to-slam-into-mexico/

Hurricane Otis slammed into the city on October 25 at 12:25 A.M. local time with windspeeds of around 165 miles per hour, according to the NHC. It was the first known Category 5 storm to ever hit the region. “There are no hurricanes on record even close to this intensity for this part of Mexico,” the dire NHC forecast noted.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I really dislike the "all bad weather is due to climate change" trope. We don't know it; we can't know it; as such even if you think it's a white lie needed to encourage good behavior it is unconvincing.

The science of hurricane prediction is new. We've only had it for around 80 years - i.e. within living memory. Satellites for around 60. Models that predict paths? About 50.

How many hurricanes have we had since then to test how well these models work? Maybe 250-300, with a similar number of storms that never became hurricanes. Not only does this not provide a whole lot of data to test these models, even if the models are 90% accurate, you'd expect an oddball every year or two.

 

[nsaspook]