Sunday, October 02, 2022

Orlene strengthens into hurricane off Mexico's coast

Tori B. Powell
Sat, October 1, 2022

Orlene, off of Mexico's Pacific coast, strengthened into a hurricane on Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center. The slow-moving cyclone comes as the powerful storm Ian continues to unleash extreme weather conditions across southeastern U.S. states.

Located around 235 miles south-southwest of Cabo Corrientes, Orlene was moving north Saturday morning at nearly 5 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. By Saturday night, the storm is expected to move north-northeastward at a "slightly faster speed."

The storm's maximum sustained winds were near 75 miles per hour, with even higher gusts, and tropical-storm-force winds extended out up to 45 miles from the center of the storm. The weather agency noted "steady strengthening is expected through Sunday."

Orlene is expected to eventually weaken before reaching the coast of mainland Mexico early next week.

Certain portions of Mexico could be in for three to five inches of rainfall, with local amounts reaching ten inches, creating the risk of flash flooding and landslides. The National Hurricane Center warned of "life-threatening surf and rip current conditions" along the coast of southwestern Mexico and the extreme southern part of the Baja California peninsula.

Areas across the coast of mainland Mexico were under tropical storm warnings and watches as well as hurricane watches. The National Hurricane Center said it expects more advisories will be issued throughout the day on Saturday.

The U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Mexico advised those in impacted areas to monitor local media and the National Hurricane Center for updates on the storm, seek shelter if needed and to check with airlines for potential flight impacts.

What is a Hurricane, Typhoon, or Tropical Cyclone?

https://gpm.nasa.gov/.../what-hurricane-typhoon-or-tropical-cyclone

A tropical cyclone is the generic term for a non-frontal synoptic scale low-pressure system over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized convection (i.e. thunderstorm activity) and …



Henry Piddington published 40 papers dealing with tropical storms from Calcutta between 1836 and 1855 in The Journal of the Asiatic Society. He also coined the term cyclone, meaning the coil of a snake. In 1842, he published his landmark thesis, Laws of the Storms.

Law of Storms

A storm card to guide sailors

In 1833 a cyclone hit Calcutta and Piddington took little interest in it but in 1838 he stumbled on the "Law of Storms" by (then) Lt.-Colonel William Reid and this led him to return to his sailing experience and take an interest in ship logs. He was assisted by Captain Christopher Biden, the Master Attendant at Madras. Piddington also corresponded with R. W. Redfield who worked on storms around North America. His interest led the government to send all records of storms to Piddington from September 1839.[1]

Title page of the "Horn Book" (1848 edition) which included a translucent "storm card" in a sleeve within the book

The result of Piddington's studies based on the logs of several ships, notably the Brig Charles Heddle which was trapped in a storm off Mauritius was his observation of the spiral wind tracks and he wrote a series of papers (24 memoirs in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal) on the topic.[4][5] He noticed that the storms had a calm centre and that the winds around them ran anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. This was followed by a book, The Horn-Book for the Law of Storms for the Indian and China Seas the first edition of which was published in 1844. He produced a second edition in 1848 and he introduced the word "cyclone" derived from Greek κύκλος (kyklos, meaning "circle" or "ring") based on the helical nature of the winds. The idea of the horn book was that a translucent sheet (made of horn) with the diagram of the cyclone could be placed on a map so that the wind directions could be readily compared by any sailor to identify a cyclone so that a tacking course to avoid it could be followed. A review in Nautical Magazine (1848) however claimed that it reminded the author of a children's "horn book" to teach alphabets. The book ran into many editions and Piddington was even made a president of the marine court of enquiry at Calcutta in 1851. In 1853 he advised the Governor General that Port Canning was best not built on the southeastern side of Calcutta as it was vulnerable to storms. The Port was however built there and after Piddington's death, it was devastated in 1867 by a storm and abandoned a few years later.[1]




  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_deadliest_tropical_cyclones

    In October 1970, the Bhola cyclone struck what is now Bangladesh and killed at least 300,000 people. There have been 13 tropical cyclones in the 21st century so far with a death toll of at …

  2. https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/the-strongest...

    The world’s most powerful tropical cyclone




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