1987 Pacific hurricane season

Storms on both sides of the Date Line

The current best track counts 20 named storms, 10 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes, well above average and then the fifth most active season on record. The site's archive counts 21, 11 and 6. It includes Wynne, a system that formed east of the Date Line on 18 July and became a western Pacific typhoon; the Central Pacific Hurricane Center never added it to its database. The archive credits Wynne with 125 kt and 920 hPa, the lowest pressure among this season's storms. It also counts Hurricane Peke as a major hurricane at 100 kt, a peak Peke reached as a typhoon after crossing into the western Pacific, while the eastern Pacific count uses its Category 2 peak east of the line.

A moderate El Niño warmed the equatorial central Pacific by 1.6°C, and the Pacific decadal oscillation was in its warm phase. The season logged 924 storm hours against a long-term average of 875. July brought six named storms, and August and September five each. No reconnaissance aircraft flew into any storm that year.

It was also the last season run from the Eastern Pacific Hurricane Center in Redwood City, California, which had forecast for the basin since about 1972. The National Hurricane Center took over in spring 1988. In 1987 forecasters first issued tropical storm watches and warnings in place of gale watches and warnings.

Hurricane Eugene's landfall near Manzanillo

Eugene formed near the Mexican coast on 22 July and became the season's first hurricane on 24 July as an upper-level low pulled it north. It peaked at 85 kt, Category 2, on 25 July, then weakened to Category 1 through land interaction before landfall west of Manzanillo. It was the first Pacific hurricane to strike Mexico in July since 1954.

Rain reached 20.68 inches at Aquila, Michoacán, and set tropical cyclone rainfall records in five Mexican states. More than 5,000 people were displaced. Eugene caused three deaths, including a man killed by a falling palm tree, and crop damage of $142 million in 1987 dollars. Tropical Storm Irwin later paralleled the same coast and caused $2.1 million in rain damage with no deaths reported.

Hurricane Max and the September peak

Hurricane Hilary became the first major hurricane on 3 August and peaked at 105 kt. Max formed south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec on 9 September and intensified fast, reaching 135 kt on 13 September. Its Dvorak satellite estimate of T7.0 was the highest recorded in the basin at the time, later matched by Hernan and Trudy in 1990. Max weakened over cooler water and dissipated on 16 September far from land.

Hurricane Otis peaked at 100 kt on 22 September, and Hurricane Ramon, which formed as a tropical storm southwest of Manzanillo without a depression stage, reached 120 kt on 9 October. Ramon's remnant moisture flooded streets in southern California and helped put out a 16,000-acre fire on Mount Palomar. Five people died in road accidents tied to the rain.

Norma, Pilar and Peke

Hurricane Norma reached 65 kt on 17 September and turned toward Baja California but stalled and dissipated only 95 miles south of the peninsula. Its remnants brought storms to San Diego and southern Orange County on 22 and 23 September, cutting power to 200,000 homes and businesses. Tropical Storm Pilar lasted 24 hours at the end of September, and one Baja California Sur station logged 7.15 inches of rain, its highest total since 1969.

Peke formed southwest of Hawaii on 21 September, became a hurricane two days later and crossed the Date Line, the first hurricane-strength storm to do so since Sarah in 1967. It caused no damage or deaths. Tropical Storm Oka formed in the central Pacific in late August. The WMO later retired the name Knut, used for a weak August storm, and replaced it with Kenneth.