Hurricane Patricia — the strongest hurricane ever recorded — weakened slightly Friday as it made landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast about 6:15 Friday evening (7:15 ET), its 165 mph winds barreling into the coast of southwestern Mexico near Cuixmala, the U.S. National Weather Service said.
The storm began lashing the coast Friday evening with strong winds and rain. Areas near the expected landfall braced for potentially catastrophic 200-mph sustained winds and torrential rains.
Astronaut Scott Kelly tweeted an incredible photo of Hurricane Patricia from the International Space Station earlier on Friday.
“Stay safe below, Mexico,” Kelly tweeted.
Hurricane #Patricia looks menacing from @space_station. Stay safe below, #Mexico. #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/6LP2xCYcGD
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) October 23, 2015
The excessive wind speeds, according to the head of the Mexican national weather service, “makes Patricia the most dangerous storm in history.”
By that, CONAGUA director Robert Ramirez de la Parra meant any cyclone ever measured, not just in and around Mexico.
The closest contender, at this point, might be Hurricane Camille, which battered the U.S. Gulf Coast in 1969. Patricia looks to be more powerful than that storm, as well as stronger than Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Katrina in 2005 and many others.
It already has surpassed them in one way: its central pressure reading — the weight of the air above a system — which is a key measure of any storm’s strength.
The midday Friday central pressure recording of 879 millibars (the barometric pressure equivalent is 25.96 inches) “is the lowest for any tropical cyclone globally for over 30 years,” according to the Met Office, Britain’s weather service.
Patricia’s intensity is comparable to Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013, the World Meteorological Organization tweeted. More than 6,000 people died in Haiyan, due largely to enormous storm surges that rushed through coastal areas. Haiyan had 195 mph sustained winds when it made landfall.
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said, “This is the only hurricane that’s ever been this powerful.”
While its strength could fluctuate, “Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane through landfall,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Friday afternoon.
Life-threatening flash floods, surf
In addition to powerful winds, concerns are high about dangerous storm surges like those that overran the Filipino city of Tacloban during Haiyan. The National Hurricane Center warned about those, as well as swells that “are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip-current conditions.”
Rainfall of 8 to 12 inches — and possibly 20 inches in some spots — “could produce life-threatening flash floods and mudslides,” according to the U.S. weather agency.
Much of the system’s precipitation could make its way up to Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas, states already enduring heavy rains from another system, after rolling across the Gulf of Mexico.
“The hurricane is so big and so intense that it has the capacity to pass over both the Sierra Madres in our country — that is, through our most mountainous ranges — and then exit the country on the other side into the north part of the Gulf of Mexico and possibly the United States,” Ramirez de la Parra said.
Mexican authorities take preventive measures
All flights to and from the airports in Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo were suspended, and all banks in certain locales shut down at noon, according to Mexico’s civil protection agency.
Some hotels in Puerto Vallarta were evacuated, though others — like the Comfort Inn, where manager Samuel Ruic said windows were being boarded up with tape — were not.
Mexican officials said over 1,780 shelters had been set up for more than 240,000 people and that a 50,000-strong force had been mobilized in Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit. In addition, about 4,000 Mexican navy officers have been dispatched to areas expected to bear the brunt of Patricia’s wrath.
El Nino contributes to storm’s strength, could lead to heavy rain in US
One other thing alarming about Patricia is its rapid rise in intensity. It rated as a tropical storm early Thursday, but 24 hours later it had become a Category 5 hurricane.
Storms are not unusual in Mexico, but Patricia is special, in part because of the global, regular weather phenomenon known as El Niño. Among other effects, El Niño has contributed to ocean waters off Mexico being 2 to 3 degrees warmer than usual.
“That warm water from El Niño probably just pushed this slightly over the edge to be the strongest storm on record,” CNN’s Myers said.