2016 Pacific hurricane season

Season overview

By any count this was a busy year for the northeastern and central Pacific, though considerably less active than 2015. Activity came in bursts separated by long gaps: nothing formed between mid-January and early June, the first eastern Pacific named storm did not appear until July, and October and November were quiet apart from one intense hurricane and a brief late tropical storm. Ahead of the season, forecasters at NOAA and Mexico's national weather service pointed to a fading El Niño and a developing La Niña and expected activity near normal, which in the end the season comfortably exceeded.

The season's opening storm was arguably an extension of the very strong 2015 to 2016 El Niño. Hurricane Pali grew out of a low that formed at 1.9 degrees north, inside a trough near the equator that a persistent burst of westerly winds had kept alive since late December. In the Central Pacific Hurricane Center's analysis, its formation on 7 January was the earliest in any calendar year for a tropical cyclone in the central North Pacific.

Counts on this site come from the IBTrACS archive, which counts one-minute winds during each storm's tropical stage and assigns storms to a basin by where their tracks begin. On that basis the season had 22 tropical storms, 14 hurricanes and 7 major hurricanes, with an accumulated cyclone energy of 198.6 units. The National Hurricane Center's best track, used by Wikipedia, gives 22 named storms, 13 hurricanes and 6 major hurricanes and an energy index of about 184.9 units. The two lists differ by two storms. The archive includes Songda, which began east of the International Date Line before crossing into the western Pacific and becoming a typhoon. The official tally includes Otto, an Atlantic hurricane that crossed Central America and entered the eastern Pacific as a tropical storm in late November, and which does not appear in the archive's list for this basin.

How the season unfolded

After Pali dissipated near the equator on 14 January, the basin stayed empty for almost five months. A short-lived tropical depression formed southwest of the Gulf of Tehuantepec on 6 June and brought rain to southeastern Mexico before dissipating offshore. No named storm followed until Tropical Storm Agatha on 2 July, the second-latest first named storm in the eastern Pacific record, behind only Ava in 1969.

July then made up for lost time. Agatha, Blas, Celia, Darby, Estelle, Frank and Georgette all formed during the month, tying the record for named storms in July, and on 22 July four tropical cyclones were active at once. When Frank became a hurricane it was the fifth of the month, a new July record for the basin. Celia went on to record the longest track of the season in the archive, which follows it for more than 15 days from 6 to 21 July, including its time after losing tropical characteristics.

August was slightly less busy. Howard, Ivette and Kay stayed over open water or faded near Hawaii, Javier grazed the tip of the Baja California peninsula, and the month closed with Hurricanes Lester and Madeline both heading for Hawaii at the same time. Early September brought Hurricane Newton into Baja California and Sonora, followed by Hurricanes Orlene and Paine and Tropical Storm Roslyn, all of which stayed at sea.

Late September produced the strangest track of the year. Ulika formed as a depression about 1,055 nautical miles east-southeast of the island of Hawaii on 26 September, drifted west across 140 degrees west into the central Pacific, where it became a tropical storm and took a name from the Hawaiian list, then turned back east into the National Hurricane Center's area, became a small hurricane on 28 September and crossed 140 degrees west once more before decaying. It was the first tropical cyclone on record to cross that line three times.

October was unusually quiet in the eastern Pacific apart from Hurricane Seymour late in the month, while Songda began its life near the Date Line early in October. The season ended with Tropical Storm Tina, a weak storm that formed off southwestern Mexico on 13 November and was torn apart by strong wind shear the next day.

The strongest storms

Seven storms reached major hurricane strength of 96 knots or more in the archive, and five of them reached Category 4. The archive's strongest and lowest-pressure storm is Songda, with a peak one-minute wind of 130 knots and a pressure of 926 hPa on 11 October. The Japan Meteorological Agency began tracking the system east of the Date Line on 3 October, but it moved into the western Pacific and became a typhoon there, so its peak belongs to the western Pacific part of its track.

Within the eastern Pacific itself, Hurricane Seymour was the strongest storm and matched Songda's 130 knots. A compact system that formed about 360 nautical miles south of Manzanillo on 23 October, Seymour strengthened by 90 knots in 54 hours, reaching its peak early on 26 October with a pressure of 940 hPa. It was the strongest hurricane on record so far west so late in the season in the eastern North Pacific. Rising shear and cold upwelled water then took apart the small storm even faster than it had grown: it lost 85 knots in 36 hours and became post-tropical on 28 October far west of Baja California.

The other Category 4 hurricanes all came during the summer peak. Hurricane Blas reached 120 knots on 6 July, and Hurricane Georgette unexpectedly reached 115 knots on 25 July well southwest of Mexico. Hurricane Lester, the most intense of the late August pair, peaked at 125 knots on 31 August, while Hurricane Madeline reached 115 knots on 30 August. Hurricane Darby peaked at 105 knots as a Category 3 on 16 July, and Hurricane Orlene fell just short of major status at 95 knots in September.

Landfalls and impacts

Hurricane Newton was the season's most damaging storm. It intensified rapidly over very warm water and peaked at 80 knots about 50 nautical miles south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas early on 6 September. Its eyewall swept the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, and its center came ashore near El Cuñaño on the peninsula's west coast at 75 knots. Newton weakened to a tropical storm over the Gulf of California and made a second landfall at 55 knots just south of Bahía de Kino, Sonora, on 7 September, and its remnants moved into southern Arizona, where flash flooding forced rescues.

The National Hurricane Center attributes five direct deaths to Newton as a tropical cyclone: five fishermen drowned when their shrimp boat capsized in the Gulf of California. Before the system became a tropical cyclone, flooding from its precursor killed three people in Chiapas and one in Guerrero and damaged about 2,000 homes. Reported damage estimates, in 2016 pesos, were 700 million pesos (about 37 million US dollars) in Baja California Sur, much of it from rain-driven landslides around Santa Rosalía and Mulegé, and 1.1 billion pesos (about 58 million US dollars) in the Guaymas area of Sonora, where more than 3,000 homes were damaged and about 90 percent of Guaymas and San Carlos lost power.

Tropical Storm Javier, which formed from the remnants of Atlantic Hurricane Earl, made landfall at 45 knots near San José del Cabo on 9 August. It brought useful rain to western Mexico and Baja California Sur, and no damage or casualties were reported.

Hawaii was threatened repeatedly. Darby weakened on its way into the central Pacific but made landfall on the Big Island near Pahala as a tropical storm around 0000 UTC on 24 July, then passed between Oahu and Kauai, causing significant flooding across eastern Oahu without any reported casualties. Swells from Hurricane Celia's remnants caused two direct drowning deaths on Oahu's southeastern shore on 16 July. At the end of August, Madeline prompted a hurricane warning for the Big Island before passing more than 75 nautical miles to the southeast, bringing surf of up to 25 feet, localized power outages and minor flooding. Days later Lester passed north of the islands as a Category 1 hurricane, and its swell produced surf of 10 to 20 feet and many water rescues but no serious injuries.

Records and naming

Pali set several early-season marks. It became a hurricane in mid-January, the earliest hurricane in any calendar year in the central North Pacific, and peaked at 85 knots with a clear eye at about 5.7 degrees north. It then drifted back south and dissipated near 2 degrees north, having spent its whole life in the deep tropics just east of the Date Line. The Central Pacific Hurricane Center received no reports of damage or casualties from it.

The eastern Pacific name list was the one used in 2010, with one change: Ivette replaced Isis, which the World Meteorological Organization dropped in 2015 because of its association with the militant group. Tropical Storm Ivette was the first use of the new name. Pali and Ulika were the two storms named from the central Pacific's Hawaiian lists, and Otto kept its Atlantic name after crossing into the eastern Pacific in late November.