Hurricane Patricia

The past 24 hours have been a whirlwind as tropical storm Patricia intensified into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour. It looks to make landfall Friday evening, bringing with it destructive winds, rain, and deadly storm surge. Hurricane Patricia looks to hit central Mexico between Cabo Corrientes and Punta San Telmo late Friday/early Saturday.

Via NHC, NOAA

Dangerous storm surge is expected to be one of the worst “side effects” of Patricia making landfall. Patricia is supposed to majorly weaken once making landfall, however, massive amounts of rain are also expected. It could continue to amplify for the remainder of today and tomorrow morning as it gets closer to Mexico. As it encounters the dry air off the coast, though, there is a chance it could weaken slightly, but the National Hurricane Center is expecting maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour with this hurricane as it makes landfall.

Hurricane Patricia (Cat 4) occurring over warmest SST left in Northern Hemisphere > 30°C West Pac is below normal pic.twitter.com/n0x2MxoW8i

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) October 22, 2015

This storm is definitely increasing in intensity with the help of the warm sea surface temperatures (SST).

#Patricia is the 9th Cat. 4-5 of the NE Pac (to 180W) season, eclipsing the old full-season record of 8 set in 1997. pic.twitter.com/W0GqDxhhE3 — Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) October 22, 2015

For more of Hurricane Patricia, visit the Capital Weather Gang article.