Mexico City: On a fateful day, Hurricane Lidia, characterized as “extremely dangerous,” struck the Pacific coast of Mexico, wreaking havoc as a Category 4 storm, with winds roaring at speeds of up to 140mph (220km/h). However, upon penetrating inland, the tempest began to wane, prompting the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) to downgrade its status to Category 2.
Tragically, the storm claimed a life in the state of Nayarit, where a man lost his life when a tree fell on the van he was driving. Lidia’s landfall occurred near the modest beach town of Las Penitas, just before 18:00 local time (00:00 GMT). According to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, Lidia made landfall as a Category 4 event, the scale’s second-highest ranking.
By 21:00 (03:00 GMT), the NHC reported that Lidia sustained maximum winds of 105 mph (165 km/h) as it traversed the inland town of Mascota in Jalisco state, moving east-northeast at 17 mph (28 km/h). The NHC anticipated a rapid weakening of the storm as it progressed over elevated terrain in west-central Mexico.
The NHC issued a stern warning, stating, “Life-threatening hurricane-force winds are expected along the path of the storm overnight,” cautioning of perilous water levels, flash flooding, and menacing swells along the Pacific coast.
In anticipation of the approaching tempest, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador disclosed that 6,000 armed forces personnel had been deployed to aid the imperiled residents. In a plea to the populace via the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, he urged those residing between Nayarit and Jalisco, especially in Bahia de Banderas, Puerto Vallarta, and Tomatlan, to exercise caution, steering clear of low-lying areas, rivers, and slopes.
Residents of the seaside haven of Puerto Vallarta sought refuge from the impending calamity, securing their abodes by boarding up windows and fortifying with sandbags to mitigate potential flooding. Preemptively, the city’s airport announced closure from 16:00 local time (22:00 GMT) until 08:00 on Wednesday.
Notably, parts of Mexico’s Pacific coastline had already witnessed significant flooding earlier in the week due to Tropical Storm Max. Regrettably, two lives were lost in the state of Guerrero as a result of the storm.
Mexico finds itself annually contending with hurricanes on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts during the official hurricane season, spanning from May to November, with most storms brewing between July and October.
The scientific community is yet to determine the definitive impact of climate change on storm frequency. However, researchers posit that escalating sea surface temperatures warm the air above, rendering more energy available to fuel hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons, likely intensifying their force and augmenting precipitation.
The global temperature has already surged by approximately 1.1°C (33.98°F) since the advent of the industrial era, and unless concerted efforts to curtail emissions are undertaken by governments worldwide, this trajectory of rising temperatures is poised to persist.
