EASTERN PACIFIC SEASON MAP
1963 Pacific hurricane season
8 recorded storms from Jun 29, 1963 to Oct 19, 1963
Last updated
The 1963 Pacific hurricane season produced 8 tropical storms and 4 hurricanes, none of them major. Hurricane Emily opened the season on 29 June and Hurricane Mona closed it with a landfall in western Mexico on 18 October. Between them, a September storm tracked under two names brought heavy rain to southern California. Read more
Drag to pan. Pinch or Ctrl/⌘ + scroll to zoom. Keyboard: plus or minus to zoom, arrow keys to pan, and 0 to show the whole map.
8 storms with an IBTrACS 1963 hurricane season record. Tracks are the archived center positions, first observation Jun 29, 1963, last Oct 19, 1963.
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
Jen-Kath, full archive record
Mapped, but outside the counts above
SEASON HISTORY
Four hurricanes at the same peak
The archive records eight tropical storms and four hurricanes, with accumulated cyclone energy of 36.5; the current best track gives the same totals for a below-average season. All four hurricanes carry a 75 kt peak in the archive, so the site lists Emily, the first to reach it, as the strongest. The current best track instead credits Glenda and Mona with 85 mph winds, the season's highest.
Hurricane Emily formed on 29 June and made landfall near Manzanillo as a Category 1 hurricane before dissipating over the mountains of Mexico. Hurricanes Florence and Glenda followed in July and stayed far from land, Florence on a nearly due-west track.
Two storms around Hawaii
An unnamed tropical storm curved around Hawaii from 2 to 8 August. Ships in the shipping lanes met gales as it moved north, and its remnants dissipated near 50°N, 165°W. In mid-September Tropical Storm Irah peaked at tropical storm strength and later struck Hawaii as a tropical depression.
One storm, two names
Forecasters named a mid-September storm Jennifer, believed it had dissipated, and then named what they took to be a new storm Katherine. Reanalysis showed a single system, which the site lists as Tropical Storm Jen-Kath. It moved north and hit Baja California on 18 September as a tropical depression, and 6.5 inches of rain fell in the mountains of southern California.
Late landfalls in western Mexico
Tropical Storm Lillian paralleled the Mexican coast, turned on 28 September and came ashore in western Mexico on 29 September with winds of about 50 mph, becoming post-tropical shortly before landfall. Hurricane Mona struck about the same stretch of coast on 18 October with winds of about 85 mph and dissipated the next day.
Further reading
QUICK ANSWERS
The 1963 season in brief
How many hurricanes were there in the 1963 Pacific hurricane season?
The archive records 4 hurricanes (one-minute winds of 74 mph or more) among 8 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 1963 Pacific hurricane season?
Emily, with a peak one-minute sustained wind of 86 mph (Category 1) on Jun 29, 1963, 12:00 AM UTC.
How many Category 5 storms were there in 1963?
None. No storm in the 1963 Pacific hurricane season reached Category 5 on the Saffir–Simpson one-minute wind scale in the archive.
When did the 1963 Pacific hurricane season start and end?
The first tropical-stage observation is on Jun 29, 1963 and the last on Oct 19, 1963, from 8 tracked storms in the archive.
What was the first hurricane of the 1963 Pacific hurricane season?
Emily, which reached hurricane strength (74 mph) on Jun 29, 1963, 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 1963 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