Hurricane Erick could make history with a powerful early season landfall in Mexico » Yale Climate Connections

Forecast for Erick

Wind shear is expected to be light (5-10 knots) until landfall, favoring rapid intensification. The waters along Erick’s path are not exceptionally deep, so the total oceanic heat content along Eric’s path will be limited by Wednesday night, but sea surface temperatures will be increasingly warm — close to 30 degrees Celsius (86°F) — so Erick is predicted to intensify further, perhaps all the way up to landfall. Intensification will be aided by an unusually moist atmosphere with a mid-level relative humidity of 80-85%.

The 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday National Hurricane Center forecast called for Erick to peak as a Category 3 storm with 115 mph (185 km/h) winds at landfall on Thursday morning; NHC warned that the hurricane could get even stronger. Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index: Ocean showed that ocean temperatures along Erick’s path were close to average and were not substantially boosted by human-caused climate change.

An unusual early season hurricane landfall for Mexico

As with other cases of oblique approach, such as hurricanes that head north to northeast parallel to Florida’s Gulf Coast, only a slight change in direction will make a big difference in where Erick comes ashore. Most hurricanes in Erick’s location end up staying offshore, especially this early in the season. In fact, no major hurricanes have made landfall on Mexico’s Pacific coast during June and July in modern records (see Fig. 1). Even in August, only one major landfall has occurred on the Pacific side of Mexico: Hurricane Kiko, which struck the southernmost Baja Peninsula at Category 3 strength on Aug. 27, 1989. A weaker analog for Erick would be Hurricane Carlotta (not shown in Fig. 1), which moved onto the coast of western Oaxaca on June 16, 2012, with Category 2 sustained winds of 105 mph (169 km/h). Over the past 75 years, 16 hurricanes have made landfall in Mexico before July, with only three striking at Category 2 intensity, the last time being in late May 2022 when Hurricane Agatha struck the small coastal town of Puerto Ángel, which was also under a hurricane warning for Erick (h/t to Michael Lowry for this stat).

NHC’s forecast track brings Erick ashore on Thursday morning at a fairly sharp angle about 100 miles (161 km) east of Acapulco, which endured a punishing blow from Category 5 Hurricane Otis — Mexico’s costliest hurricane on record — in October 2023. The top three track models agree on keeping Erick east of Acapulco, which would likely keep top sustained winds below hurricane strength there. Short-range high-resolution models designed for intensity prediction are generally less reliable for track forecasts, but they also concur that Erick will make landfall east of Acapulco, most likely along the sparsely populated coast of western Oaxaca state.

There remain differences among these high-resolution models in the sharpness of Erick’s approach, which will affect both the location and strength of landfall. Should Erick make a more direct approach to the coast, it could bring heavy rains and high winds to the heavily touristed Huatulco area. Wherever it tracks, Erick is likely to dump rains of eight to 16 (20-41 cm) inches, perhaps 20 inches (51 cm) or more locally, so flash floods and mudslides will be a distinct threat.

The Eastern Pacific’s hurricane season is running well ahead of schedule

Erick arrived more than a month ahead of average for the Eastern Pacific: The basin’s fifth named storm of the year normally does not develop until July 23, based on 1991-2020 climatology. Barbara became the Eastern Pacific’s first hurricane on June 9, well before the average June 26 arrival date of the basin’s first hurricane. Erick became a hurricane on June 18; the average formation date of the season’s second hurricane is July 15.

Comparison with devastating Hurricane John of 2024

With the unusual onshore angle of its approach, Erick bears some resemblance to last year’s Hurricane John, which also took an uncommonly sharp bearing into the Pacific coast east of Acapulco. After it rapidly intensified while moving almost due north, John stormed into eastern Guerrero state on the night of Sept. 24 with Category 3 winds of 105 mph (169 km/h). Over the next three-plus days, John angled west, moved offshore, and then came back for an unusual second landfall as a tropical storm in far western Guerrero state. Along the way, it dumped widespread rains of 10 to 20 inches (25-51 cm) and even higher localized amounts. John caused 29 deaths and inflicted damage estimated by Gallagher Re at $2.45 billion. According to EM-DAT, only three other eastern Pacific hurricanes have caused more damage in inflation-adjusted dollars in Mexico: Otis (2023, $12 billion); Manuel (2013, $5.6 billion); and Odile (2014, $3.2 billion).

Outside of the Eastern Pacific, tropical cyclones have been strikingly sparse so far this year across the entire Northern Hemisphere. Only one other named system has formed: Typhoon Wutip. It struck the northern Philippines as a strong tropical storm on June 13 and sharply recurved across southern China on June 15 as the equivalent of a minimal-strength hurricane (top one-minute sustained winds of 75 mph (121 km/h)). Wutip led to at least 17 deaths.