EASTERN PACIFIC SEASON MAP
1959 Pacific hurricane season
15 recorded storms from Jun 10, 1959 to Oct 28, 1959
Last updated
The 1959 Pacific hurricane season produced 15 tropical storms, 5 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes, one of which reached Category 5. Hurricane Patsy peaked at 150 kt near the Date Line in September, and Hurricane Dot struck Kauai in August. In late October a Category 4 hurricane hit western Mexico, the deadliest Pacific hurricane on record. Read more
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| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 730 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 530 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 1,650 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 900 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 130 |
| Dot | – | 150 | Cat 4 | 952 | 1,750 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 510 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 470 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 420 |
| Unnamed | – | 86 | Cat 1 | — | 2,090 |
| Patsy | – | 173 | Cat 5 | 970 | 1,430 |
| Unnamed | – | 86 | Cat 1 | 967 | 890 |
| Wanda | – | 69 | Tropical storm | — | 470 |
| Unnamed | – | 52 | Tropical storm | — | 320 |
| Unnamed | – | 138 | Cat 4 | 958 | 1,330 |
15 storms with an IBTrACS 1959 hurricane season record. Tracks are the archived center positions, first observation Jun 10, 1959, last Oct 28, 1959.
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
173 mph
Dot, Aug 3, 1959
Unnamed, full archive record
Mapped, but outside the counts above
SEASON HISTORY
Twelve weak storms and three violent ones
The archive records 15 tropical storms between 10 June and 28 October, five hurricanes and three major hurricanes, with accumulated cyclone energy of 112.8. The current best track gives the same totals. Nine of the ten storms that never became hurricanes peak at 45 kt in the best track, and two of the five hurricanes stayed at 75 kt, so almost all of the season's energy came from Dot, Patsy and the October hurricane off Mexico.
June and July brought five tropical storms. The first made landfall near Los Mochis on 12 June with no reported damage or deaths, and a July storm far southwest of Baja California took the name Clara from the western North Pacific list. A tropical storm on 4 August formed near 26°N, unusually far north. Tropical Storm Wanda, also named from the western list, lasted from 26 to 27 September.
Hurricane Dot on Kauai
Hurricane Dot was first identified as a strong tropical storm southeast of Hawaii on 1 August and became a hurricane six hours after it was named. It peaked on 3 August; the archive gives 130 kt and a minimum pressure of 952 hPa, the lowest of the season. After curving northwest on 5 August it weakened quickly and made landfall on Kauai the next day as a minimal hurricane.
Passing south of the Big Island, Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Oahu, Dot unroofed some coastal homes on Oahu and caused two indirect deaths on Lanai. Gusts reached 103 mph on Kauai, where power, telephone and water systems failed. The islands were declared a disaster area.
Hurricane Patsy at the Date Line
Aircraft found Hurricane Patsy near the International Date Line on 6 September, after its earlier stages had gone unobserved. The archive places its 150 kt peak at 18:00 UTC that day, making Patsy the first known Category 5 hurricane in the Pacific and the season's strongest storm. Published accounts put the peak at 160 mph or 175 mph; the archive value of 150 kt remained the central Pacific record for sustained wind until Hurricane John tied it in 1994.
A trough pushed Patsy northeast, then a weaker pattern let it curve northwest before a second trough turned it northeast again. The Japan Meteorological Agency's best track shows Patsy crossing the Date Line twice, while the National Hurricane Center's best track keeps it east of 180° throughout. Patsy weakened quickly as it turned north and dissipated around 10 or 11 September.
The October hurricane on Mexico's Pacific coast
The season's last hurricane formed on 22 October and peaked at 120 kt in the archive, with a minimum pressure of 958 hPa. It made landfall in Mexico on 27 October as a Category 4 hurricane and killed at least 1,800 people, the deadliest Pacific hurricane on record.
Earlier, in September, a Category 1 hurricane formed off Guatemala, nearly struck land on 6 September and later came ashore in Baja California Sur before dissipating near the United States border. Another hurricane from 21 to 26 September stayed at sea.
Further reading
QUICK ANSWERS
The 1959 season in brief
How many hurricanes were there in the 1959 Pacific hurricane season?
The archive records 5 hurricanes (one-minute winds of 74 mph or more) among 15 tropical storms, with 3 major hurricanes reaching 110 mph. Counts use US-agency winds during the tropical stage.
What was the strongest storm of the 1959 Pacific hurricane season?
Patsy, with a peak one-minute sustained wind of 173 mph (Category 5) on Sep 6, 1959, 06:00 PM UTC and a minimum central pressure of 970 mb.
How many Category 5 storms were there in 1959?
1 storm in the 1959 Pacific hurricane season reached Category 5 on the Saffir–Simpson one-minute wind scale: Patsy.
When did the 1959 Pacific hurricane season start and end?
The first tropical-stage observation is on Jun 10, 1959 and the last on Oct 28, 1959, from 15 tracked storms in the archive.
What was the first hurricane of the 1959 Pacific hurricane season?
Dot, which reached hurricane strength (74 mph) on Aug 1, 1959, 09:00 PM 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 1959 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