1997 Pacific hurricane season

An El Niño year from Mexico to the date line

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center traced the season to a warming that began in the winter of 1996 to 1997. By 1997, sea surface temperatures near the equator ran 4 to 5 °C above normal in the eastern Pacific and 1 to 4 °C above normal in the central Pacific, with spells of westerly low-level winds along the equator. El Niño cut wind shear and warmed the water off Mexico, and the NHC and CPHC best tracks count 19 tropical storms, 9 hurricanes and 7 major hurricanes.

The site's totals run higher because it follows each storm's whole tropical stage in one-minute winds. Oliwa and Paka left the central Pacific as tropical storms and became super typhoons farther west, so the site counts them as hurricanes, major hurricanes and Category 5 storms alongside Guillermo and Linda. The site also counts Ella, a short-lived western Pacific-numbered storm near the date line in September. For the same reason its accumulated cyclone energy of 277.2 far exceeds the roughly 160 units tallied for the eastern Pacific proper.

The central Pacific saw nine tropical cyclones, twice its 36-year average of 4.5 and the fourth highest total since 1961; only the El Niño years 1982, 1992 and 1994 had more. Four of them formed between 140°W and the date line, but strong upper-level westerlies sheared every one, and none reached hurricane strength there. The CPHC notes this had never happened before in a year with eight or more cyclones.

A reversed track in June and a July run of majors

Tropical Storm Andres formed on 1 June south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec and, turned by a passing trough, moved southeast along the coast of Guatemala, a track the NHC called unprecedented. The NHC cited reports of two fishermen missing from Nicaragua and damage to about 10 homes in El Salvador and Nicaragua. A later toll gives four deaths and 1,259 people left homeless in Nicaragua. Blanca and Carlos stayed weak and short-lived later in June.

July brought three hurricanes in quick order. Dolores became the first hurricane on 7 July, peaked at 80 kt and reached the central Pacific as a sheared depression about 1,000 miles east of Hilo. Enrique reached 100 kt on 14 July. Felicia, slowed at first by Enrique to its northwest, peaked at 115 kt on 18 and 19 July near 16°N, 127°W, then crossed 140°W as a tropical storm and dissipated about 270 miles east-southeast of Hilo.

Guillermo and the first eyewall dropsondes

Guillermo formed south of Salina Cruz on 30 July, became a hurricane on 1 August and reached 140 kt and 919 mb on 4 and 5 August, about 700 n mi southwest of the tip of Baja California. NOAA P-3 aircraft flying a research mission on 2 and 3 August dropped GPS sondes into the eyewall. The NHC report says these gave, for the first time, winds at high vertical resolution from flight level to the surface inside the eyewall of a major hurricane, and one profile showed the winds a little stronger at the surface than at flight level.

Guillermo crossed 140°W as a tropical storm on 9 August, recovered to 55 kt near 33°N, 154°W and became extratropical near 39°N on 15 August. Its remnant low looped to about 500 n mi west of Vancouver Island and dissipated off northern California on 24 August. Swell from its peak raised surf to 10 feet on some east-facing Hawaiian shores. The NHC received no casualty reports, though other counts list three deaths for Guillermo.

Tropical Storm Ignacio took an unusual path north toward California in mid-August. The NHC reported up to 2.17 inches of rain in the coast ranges and about an inch in San Francisco, more than the city had previously recorded in any entire August since 1850. Hurricane Jimena followed in late August, peaking at 120 kt before shear broke it down near 140°W.

Linda's record and Nora's run to Arizona

Linda formed south of Manzanillo on 9 September and intensified at a rate the forecasts could not match. The NHC estimated 160 kt winds and a central pressure of 902 mb near 0600 UTC on 12 September, about 125 n mi southeast of Socorro Island, a deliberately conservative figure below what the objective satellite numbers suggested. That made Linda the strongest eastern Pacific hurricane on record at the time, though the NHC cautioned that the basin relies on satellite estimates and routine satellite coverage began only in 1966. The record stood until Hurricane Patricia in 2015. The eye passed close to Socorro later on 12 September, but the island's wind and pressure instruments had lost power.

Linda turned west-northwest and never struck land. The NHC received no casualty reports; CNN reported five men swept off a jetty at Newport Beach, California, by large waves, all rescued. Moisture that reached Southern California caused $3.2 million in damage in 1997 dollars.

Nora formed on 16 September and peaked at 115 kt on 21 September, then weakened as it followed Linda's path over water Linda had cooled. A trough pulled it north, and it came ashore twice on the Baja California peninsula on the morning of 25 September, still a hurricane at both landfalls. It crossed into the United States near the California and Arizona border as a tropical storm around 2100 UTC that day. Yuma measured a 39 kt two-minute wind, a rare observation of tropical-storm winds in the United States from an eastern Pacific storm. It was the first Pacific storm since Kathleen in 1976 to bring gale-force winds to the continental United States.

The NHC reported two deaths in Mexico, an electrocution in Mexicali and a diver lost off San Quintín, and noted that the California Highway Patrol blamed three or four Southern California traffic deaths on the weather. Floods left 350 to 400 people homeless at Arroyo de Santa Catarina in Baja California. Media estimates cited in the report put agricultural losses at several hundred million dollars, including $30 to 40 million in lemon trees; about 125,000 customers lost power around Los Angeles and 12,000 in Yuma.

Pauline, Olaf and Rick on the Oaxaca coast

Tropical Storm Olaf formed on 26 September and reached 60 kt before weakening to a depression as it reached the coast near Salina Cruz on 29 September. The NHC later found that it survived at sea for days while advisories were stopped, then drifted southeast and north again to a final landfall near Manzanillo on 12 October. Mexican authorities searched for three fishing vessels missing off Acapulco, and Olaf's flooding killed 18 people in southern Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, with 27.73 inches of rain at Soyalapa.

Pauline formed on 5 October, reached 115 kt on 7 October and again on 8 October, then weakened as its northern half dragged over the mountains. The NHC estimated landfall near Puerto Escondido at about 0000 UTC on 9 October with 95 kt winds, though winds up to 115 kt may have reached the coast near Puerto Ángel. The center then ran northwest just inland. Acapulco reported only 40 kt sustained with gusts to 51 kt, and the NHC judged Pauline at most a minimal hurricane there.

Rain did the killing. Muddy floods poured through the hillside outskirts of Acapulco, and the NHC cited media reports of 230 or more deaths and hundreds of thousands left homeless; a Red Cross estimate of 400 deaths, reported by Reuters, was disputed by Mexican officials. Pauline was Mexico's deadliest hurricane since Liza in 1976, with $447.8 million in damage in 1997 dollars. The World Meteorological Organization retired the name Pauline in 1998.

A month later Rick, the first November hurricane since 1991, peaked at 85 kt and turned east-northeast into the same coast. Acapulco radar tracked its center to landfall near Puerto Escondido around 0100 UTC on 10 November with estimated winds near 75 kt. The NHC received no reports of deaths; the Associated Press described downed trees and washed-out roads in Oaxaca, some only recently repaired after Pauline.

Oliwa and Paka: central Pacific storms that grew into super typhoons

Oliwa formed from a disturbance south of Johnston Island and became a tropical storm on 2 September before crossing the date line the next evening. The CPHC reports that it passed south of Wake Island with heavy showers, grew into a super typhoon, crossed the Northern Marianas on 12 September and later struck southern Japan at reduced strength, causing damage and several deaths; other counts put the toll in Japan at 12. The archive records its peak of 140 kt and 915 hPa on 9 September.

Paka became a tropical depression and tropical storm on 2 December about 300 miles west of Palmyra, the first central Pacific tropical cyclone on record in December in the CPHC's 36-year period, forming during westerly equatorial winds as Nina in 1957 and Iwa in 1982 had. Tropical Storm Pam formed as a Southern Hemisphere twin near 12°S. Dry air and shear held Paka to 55 kt until it crossed the date line on 6 December. It then became a typhoon near Kwajalein, grew into a super typhoon and passed close to Guam on 17 December as a super typhoon, causing major damage. The archive records Paka's peak at 160 kt and 920 hPa on 18 December, and the WMO retired the name in 2007.