2024 Pacific hurricane season

A late, lopsided season

By the numbers, 2024 was a little below normal in the eastern and central Pacific. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 averages are about 15 tropical storms, 8 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes, and NOAA's May outlook had leaned toward a below-normal year. The site's archive records 14 tropical storms, 5 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes. Its accumulated cyclone energy, which combines storm strength and duration, comes to 84.6, at the low end of the 80 to 115 range NOAA treats as near normal.

What the season lacked in numbers it made up in impact. Most storms stayed over open water, but a handful struck or brushed land: a hurricane passed just south of Hawaii's Big Island, two systems flooded southern Mexico, and a tropical storm soaked Sinaloa and the tip of Baja California. Hurricane Kristy became the first Category 5 Pacific hurricane in a year without El Niño since Hurricane Celia in 2010.

Bursts between long lulls

No storm formed in May or June. Tropical Storm Aletta finally reached tropical storm strength at 12:00 UTC on 4 July, the latest first named storm in the eastern Pacific since reliable satellite records began in 1966, later than Ava in 1969 and Agatha in 2016. Aletta lasted barely a day and a half as a tropical cyclone, and nearly three weeks passed before Tropical Storm Bud formed on 24 July.

The first real burst came at the turn of August. Hurricane Carlotta formed on 31 July and became the season's first hurricane on 2 August, peaking at 80 kt. Tropical storms Daniel, Emilia and Fabio followed within days, and on 5 August all four systems were active at once. Carlotta weakened over cooler water, and after Emilia faded the basin went quiet again.

Late August brought the season's second cluster. Hurricane Gilma formed on 18 August, Hurricane Hone developed far east-southeast of Hawaii on 22 August, and Tropical Storm Hector followed on 25 August, its growth held back partly by cool water left in Gilma's wake. After a two-week pause, September produced Tropical Storm Ileana and Hurricane John, both close to the Mexican coast.

October and November were thin but not idle. An unnamed tropical storm formed near the Gulf of Tehuantepec on 1 October, Hurricane Kristy developed on 21 October, and Tropical Storm Lane and a final tropical depression, Fourteen-E, came and went over open water in early November. The last tropical-stage observation in the archive is on 7 November.

Kristy, Gilma and John

Hurricane Kristy was the season's strongest and deepest storm. It grew from the remnants of the Atlantic's Tropical Storm Nadine, which crossed southern Mexico into the Pacific on 20 October, and became a tropical depression about 200 n mi south of Acapulco on 21 October. Kristy intensified rapidly as it moved west, away from the coast, and peaked at 140 kt with an estimated minimum pressure of 926 hPa on 24 October. Wind shear then took it apart, and it became post-tropical on 27 October without affecting land.

Hurricane Gilma was the longest-lived storm, with about 11 days in the tropical stage from 18 to 29 August. It first became a major hurricane on 22 August, weakened to Category 1, then unexpectedly reintensified and peaked at 115 kt and 950 hPa on 25 August. Gilma stayed over water throughout, crossed into the central Pacific and dissipated well east of the Hawaiian Islands.

Hurricane John, the third major hurricane, was the most dangerous. It formed south of Acapulco on 22 September and, over very warm water with little wind shear, went from tropical storm to a 100 kt major hurricane in about a day, reaching 105 kt as it came ashore.

Landfalls and impacts

Hurricane John made landfall in eastern Guerrero near Marquelia at about 03:15 UTC on 24 September with winds of 105 kt. It fell apart inland, drifted back over the Pacific, reformed as a tropical storm on 25 September, regained hurricane strength on 26 September and made a second landfall as a 50 kt tropical storm in Michoacán on 27 September. Its slow, looping path produced extreme rain: Acapulco recorded 1,442 mm, about 56.8 inches, as a storm total. The NHC report cites media accounts of 29 deaths in Mexico, 23 of them in Guerrero, most presumably direct, and a total damage estimate of 2.45 billion US dollars from the reinsurance broker Gallagher Re. The name John was later retired.

The unnamed tropical storm of early October never came ashore, but it made a small loop near the Gulf of Tehuantepec while days of onshore winds pushed rain against the mountains of southeastern Mexico. Totals reached 329.5 mm at Ixtepec, Oaxaca. The Mexican government reported 2 direct deaths from flooding in Veracruz; no damage estimate is available. The system's remnants later helped seed Hurricane Milton in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Hone reached its 75 kt peak on 25 August while passing about 45 n mi south of South Point on the Big Island of Hawaii. The island's windward slopes took the heaviest rain, with a storm total of 33.58 inches at Volcano Village and more than 10 inches over about half the island. Power outages hit more than 24,000 customers statewide and floodwater damaged numerous structures, but the NHC report records no deaths or serious injuries.

Tropical Storm Ileana brushed southern Baja California Sur and northern Sinaloa from 12 to 15 September. It was first judged to have made landfall in Sinaloa, but post-storm analysis placed its surface center just offshore in the Gulf of California. Rainfall reached 9.51 inches at La Jaina in Sinaloa and 8.61 inches at San José del Cabo, flooding forced about 70 people from their homes in Guasave, and no direct deaths were reported.

Counting the season

Wikipedia counts 13 named storms plus one unnamed tropical storm, because the October system was only upgraded to a tropical storm after the season, when scatterometer and radar data were judged reliable, and never received a name. The site counts every system with tropical-stage winds of 34 kt or more, so it includes that storm among its 14. Hone formed in the eastern Pacific but was named in the central Pacific, the first named storm to form there since 2019. The site places it with this season's storms. Wikipedia's ACE figures of 84.9 in its infobox and about 82 in its text come from other calculations than the site's 84.6.