‘Mind-Boggling to be Quite Honest’: Record-Breaking Hurricane Hits Major Mexican City With Almost No Warning

Hurricane Otis hit Acapulco, Mexico in the early hours of Wednesday morning as a Category 5 storm, the first time since 1979 that such a large hurricane directly impacted a major city.

CNN brought on meteorologist Derek Van Dam to track the storm’s path and help explain how such a large city was impacted by a Category 5 for the time since Hurricane David hit Santo Domingo in the 70s and with such little warning.

“The storm struck in the dead of night. It gave very little warning. Very few weather models that meteorologists look to actually picked up on the rapid intensification that it actually went through in a 24-hour period,” Van Dam began, adding:

It was impressive. It took advantage of a very narrow swath of ocean water temperatures at about 88 degrees Fahrenheit. And that’s significant because for rapid intensification to carry on, it actually needs to be 80 degrees or higher. And it found just that water and strengthened rapidly, 165 miles per hour.

This is the first Category 5 landfall to impact the Eastern Pacific, the strongest storm to strike the Pacific coastline of Mexico. And the fastest 12-hour rapid intensification for this area.

It is that 12-hour window where it rewrote the history books, rapidly intensifying by 90 miles per hour. But the overall picture in a 24-hour period, 115 mile per hour strengthening. That is incredible. Mind-boggling, to be quite honest.

Acapulco is not only a tourist destination, but it has a residency of about 1 million people. So with a direct hit like this over a major metropolitan area, we’re starting to see the first visuals of the damage that was left behind not only by the wind, but also the storm surge.

It’s a Category 2 now. It is weakening rapidly, 110 mile per hour winds that is starting to interact with the mountainous terrain of the Guerrero state. It will rain itself out, but the damage has already been done, taking people by surprise and taking the meteorological community by surprise as well. This was not really forecast to happen. It blew up from a tropical storm to a monster in a period of 24 hours. This is the new normal that we’re getting used to here, John. Climate change, the fingerprints written all over it.

Anchor John Berman, agreed, adding, “Yeah, a lot of superlatives there. The first, the strongest, the most. Derek Van Dam, keep us posted when those pictures start to come in.”

Watch the full clip above via CNN.