Hurricane Otis: The Surprise Category 5 Storm That Devastated Acapulco

We now know Hurricane Otis is the strongest storm to ever hit the Acapulco region of Mexico. It came in this week with Category 5 strength. At the peak, over half a million people were without power. Ten thousand troops now working to help restore this scene, help people rebuild. It is just devastating. And, of course, the sea surface temperatures are to blame. The issue of this storm being caught off guard by so many people. It really is an interesting weather story. And meteorologist Rhythm Reit joins us now to talk about it. Rhythm, let's first get into the landfall and why that was so significant. So, well, when they made landfall, it was in the middle of the night, 125 a.m. local time. It hit with Category 5 winds. And when it did make landfall, it was on Wednesday. So it has been a couple of days, but nonetheless still cleaning up from all of that devastation. Now, as we look at how this storm surprised people, that really is the most interesting part of this. Meteorologists and weather experts, they saw this storm moving into Mexico's western edge as a tropical storm. But we know that did not happen. Exactly. On Monday, forecasters believed it was going to hit as a tropical storm. But within 12 hours, it intensified, bringing about that beautiful structure to a Category 4 and continued to strengthen right off the coast up to a Category 5. And when we're taking a look at the intensification, well, it went up 128 km per hour winds up to 233 within those 12 hours, strengthening to a Category 5 as well. And that old record was held by Patricia. And you can see just how quickly that pressure dropped in the storm, really allowing it to intensify and bring such a catastrophic scene. Now, Rhythm, this isn't the first storm in 2023 that we're using the term rapid intensification. No, this is the third. When we look back to the Atlantic Basin, we had Hurricane Lee and Adalia that also went through rapid intensification. And it's all thanks to those warmer sea surface temperatures recording the warmest that we've seen since 1981.