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Across much of the Atlantic Ocean, from Cuba to Texas and Florida to Newfoundland, hurricanes and tropical storms have flooded streets, cut off electricity and wreaked havoc on cities this year.

Storms are also reviving in the Northeast Pacific: There have been 16 named storms so far this year, including six hurricanes more than a month into the season.

The last is Pamela, reaching land. in mainland Mexico Like a hurricane on Wednesday.

The Pacific hurricane season begins on May 15 and lasts until November 30, as does the Atlantic season, which begins on June 1. But due to geography and wind patterns, among other factors, hurricanes in the Pacific tend to get less attention. Although their Atlantic counterparts can still impose dangerous conditions on cities and ships.

How do the seasons compare?

A professor of coastal studies at Louisiana State University, Dr. Because of atmospheric conditions, when hurricane season is stronger in one ocean, it means that the other will have a weaker season, Nan Walker said.

This means that this year, the northeastern Pacific may continue to have a slightly weaker season than the Atlantic, which makes up the 20th from late September. tropical cyclones — Circular storms over warm waters with very low air pressure in the center and winds of more than 74 miles per hour.

On average, there are typically 15 named storms in the Pacific each season. There are 14 in the Atlantic. (Last year, 30 names storm record In the Atlantic, according to the National Hurricane Center.)

Still, although the Atlantic has produced more storms this season than the Pacific, tropical cyclones that form in both oceans “pose the same threat to sailors and land areas,” he said. NHC in Miami.

Pacific storms rarely hit land.

Most of the storm systems in both oceans are moving from east to west, experts said. In the Atlantic, this means that many storms will likely affect the Caribbean, Mexico and the east and south coasts of the United States. But in the Pacific, Mr Feltgen said, “very little has had any impact on land.”

A professor of meteorology at Florida International University in Miami, Dr. “They don’t really pose a threat to the US West Coast,” said Haiyan Jiang.

In fact, Professor of coastal meteorology at Louisiana State University, Dr. Paul Miller said the wind “typically carried them from North America to the open ocean.”

Experts say that because storms primarily move over the wide-open waters of the Pacific, there is no land mass to weaken their energy.

Director of extreme events research at Florida International University, Dr. Richard Olson said that if a storm is strong enough in the Pacific, it could draw some attention. But because the US is largely shielded from these storms, they don’t get the same anxiety as those in the Atlantic, he added.

But storms sometimes reach western Mexico and the West Coast.

A climatologist at Texas A&M University, Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon said storms sometimes land in western Mexico, and their remnants often bring precipitation to Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, as well as northeastern regions.

“Basically, it increases the amount of precipitation produced because there is so much moisture in the air from these storms,” he said.

A professor at Florida International University who studies hurricane action, Dr. Hugh Willoughby said that although most storms move westward, deeper into the Pacific, some return to Mexico like boomerangs.

When a storm recurs, it usually loses strength due to contact with cooler water from the Baja California peninsula or the California coastline.

Dr. “If you’ve ever swam in San Diego, you know how cold the water is,” Willoughby said. “This is poison for hurricanes.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the last time a hurricane hit California, 1858 San Diego Hurricane, which brought winds of about 75 miles per hour. The Herald Tribune reported that the day after the storm, “all the skies approached the shore along the coast of dark, heavy, ominous-looking clouds that flew fairly close to the ground before the raging storm.”

In 2015, Hurricane Patricia, whose winds reached a Category 4 speed of 150 mph, broke the record for the strongest storm on record in the Northeast Pacific and North Atlantic basins. storm center.

Climate change means we can expect storms to become ‘more severe’.

Researchers have suggested that climate change is causing some storms to intensify more rapidly. Dr. This includes storms in the Pacific, Willoughby said.

“There is every reason to expect them to be busier,” he said.

Dr. Nielsen-Gammon said it did not see an increase in the total number of storms, but an increase in the total number of intense storms.

A warming planet can expect stronger hurricanes and more of the strongest storms over time – but the overall storm count may decrease as factors such as stronger wind shear can prevent weaker storms from forming.

Hurricanes also get wetter as there is more water vapor in the warmer atmosphere, and rising sea levels also contribute to higher storm surges, the most destructive element of tropical cyclones.

How was the 2021 Pacific season?

Experts said this season has been average in terms of storm numbers and intensity.

But some storms still caused damage and death in some communities in western Mexico.

in August, Tropical Storm Nora He was blamed for the death of a boy whose body was found after a hotel partially collapsed in Puerto Vallarta, according to the governor of the State of Jalisco.

Its remnants caused heavy rain in Arizona, Colorado and Utah, according to meteorologists.

Storm Pamela approached the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula as a hurricane on Tuesday night. NHC. It landed in west-central Mexico as a hurricane on Wednesday — making it a rare example of a storm recurring toward the mainland, experts said.

What about storms in the central and western Pacific?

Dr. Nielsen-Gammon said the western Pacific storm season, which affects many regions such as the Philippines, Japan and China, is essentially year-round because water temperatures are always warm enough to support tropical cyclones. There are called tropical cyclones Typhoons, a definition of landing.

Dr. It’s rare for storms to form in the central Pacific, but when they do, Hawaii is usually the only area affected. For example, in 1992 Hurricane Iniki struck the state As a Category 4 stormkilled at least six people and destroyed more than 1,400 homes. More recently, Tropical Storm Olivia made landfall in 2018.

Dr. Many other storms “moving in the middle of the ocean” have formed, Walker said.