EASTERN PACIFIC SEASON MAP
1951 Pacific hurricane season
10 recorded storms from Mar 21, 1951 to Nov 30, 1951
Last updated
The 1951 Pacific hurricane season produced 9 tropical storms and 2 hurricanes, with no major hurricane. Both hurricanes peaked at 75 kt, Category 1, one near Acapulco in June and one in late September. The archive also holds a March depression that wandered over the Hawaiian Islands, and the last storm faded on 30 November. Read more
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| Unnamed | – | 30 | Tropical depression | — | 2,130 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 570 |
| Unnamed | – | 86 | Cat 1 | — | 650 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 200 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 250 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 2,420 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 1,690 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 590 |
| Unnamed | – | 86 | Cat 1 | — | 1,370 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 820 |
10 storms with an IBTrACS 1951 hurricane season record. Tracks are the archived center positions, first observation Mar 21, 1951, last Nov 30, 1951.
Tropical-stage US-agency wind of 39 mph or more
74 mph or more, one-minute sustained
110 mph or more, Saffir–Simpson scale
158 mph or more at any tropical-stage observation
86 mph
No tropical-stage pressure in the archive
Unnamed, full archive record
Mapped, but outside the counts above
SEASON HISTORY
Nine storms, most of them brief
The archive holds ten tracks for 1951. Nine reached tropical storm strength, two of them hurricane strength, and accumulated cyclone energy came to 35.5. Seven of the storms carry a flat 45 kt peak, and both hurricanes a flat 75 kt, values that show how few measurements forecasters had. The current best track counts the same nine Eastern Pacific systems.
Several storms lasted barely a day in the record. The storms of late June and early July each spanned about 24 hours, while the August storms and the September hurricane ran for five to eight days.
Acapulco and the Baja California storm
The season's first tropical storm struck near Acapulco in May, and the first hurricane hit the same stretch of coast on 1 June. A late-June tropical storm came close to land without a recorded landfall.
A tropical storm first seen south of Mexico on 24 August ran parallel to the coast and moved north into Baja California on 28 August. It dissipated the next day, and its moisture caused moderate flooding in southern California. The second hurricane followed from 23 to 28 September, and a final tropical storm lasted from 27 to 30 November.
A kona storm over Oahu
A warm-core kona storm west of Necker Island became tropical on 21 March, when the Joint Typhoon Warning Center began tracking it at depression strength. It drifted east, turned toward the islands and made landfall near Hauula on Oahu on 25 March. The system then looped back for a second Oahu landfall near Mākaha on 28 March and made a final landfall near Kealia on 29 March before the JTWC stopped tracking it near Nīhoa. The archive peaks it at 26 kt, below tropical storm strength.
Agencies disagree on what the system was. The JTWC and the American Meteorological Society treat it as a tropical cyclone, but the National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center leave it out of their archives. Tropical storm warnings went up for Hawaii on 25 March, Oahu reported 60 mph winds and Honolulu received 6 inches of rain. March 1951 rainfall in the islands ran nearly 200 to 700 percent above normal.
Further reading
QUICK ANSWERS
The 1951 season in brief
How many hurricanes were there in the 1951 Pacific hurricane season?
The archive records 2 hurricanes (one-minute winds of 74 mph or more) among 9 tropical storms, with 0 major hurricanes reaching 110 mph. Counts use US-agency winds during the tropical stage.
What was the strongest storm of the 1951 Pacific hurricane season?
Unnamed, with a peak one-minute sustained wind of 86 mph (Category 1) on Jun 1, 1951, 12:00 AM UTC.
How many Category 5 storms were there in 1951?
None. No storm in the 1951 Pacific hurricane season reached Category 5 on the Saffir–Simpson one-minute wind scale in the archive.
When did the 1951 Pacific hurricane season start and end?
The first tropical-stage observation is on Mar 21, 1951 and the last on Nov 30, 1951, from 10 tracked storms in the archive.
What was the first hurricane of the 1951 Pacific hurricane season?
Unnamed, which reached hurricane strength (74 mph) on Jun 1, 1951, 12:00 AM UTC.
METHODOLOGY
Data sources and limitations
The map and totals are generated from NOAA's IBTrACS v04r01 archive. A storm belongs to this page when the archive lists it in the Eastern Pacific basin for the 1951 season, so a December storm whose track ends in January stays with its season. Storms that cross between basins appear on the page of their archive basin only.
Counts use US-agency one-minute winds during the tropical stage: 34 kt for a tropical storm, 64 kt for hurricane strength and 96 kt for major intensity, on the Saffir–Simpson scale in every basin. Local agencies classify storms differently, and official season summaries can differ from the archive. Accumulated cyclone energy sums squared winds at six-hourly synoptic times, counting observations in the calendar year. Storms with no US-agency wind are mapped but cannot enter the counts.
The map frame is the same for every Eastern Pacific season, so a track that leaves it is cut at the edge. Lines show each storm's center, not its size, rainfall or flood extent. Coastlines use Natural Earth's 1:10m land data.
Archive retrieved
NOAA IBTrACS archive and Field documentation
Sources & methodology