Hurricane Erick rapidly intensified to a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it moved over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean south of Mexico on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Erick was located at latitude 14.2\u00b0N and longitude 96.3\u00b0W which put the center about 215 miles (345 km) southeast of Punta Maldonado, Mexico. \u00a0\u00a0 Erick was moving toward the northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h). \u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 120 m.p.h. (195 km\/h). \u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 971 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from Puerto Angel to Acapulco, Mexico.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A Hurricane Watch was in effect for the portion of the coast from Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana, Mexico.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from Puerto Angel to Salina Cruz, Mexico.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana, Mexico.<\/span> A U.S. Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance plane investigating Hurricane Erick on Wednesday afternoon found that Erick had rapidly intensified to Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 A circular eye with a diameter of 15 miles (24 km) was present at the center of Erick’s circulation.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a ring of thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Hurricane Erick.\u00a0 Storms near the core generated strong upper level divergence that pumped mass away in all directions from the hurricane.\u00a0 The removal of large amounts of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n The distribution of winds speeds around Hurricane Erick was fairly symmetrical.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out 15 miles (25 km) from the center of Erick’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 105 miles (165 km) from the center of Hurricane Erick.<\/p>\n Hurricane Erick will move through an environment very favorable for intensification during the next 18 hours.\u00a0 Erick will move over water where where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge over southern Mexico and the adjacent part of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the middle of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Erick will intensify during the next 18 hours. Erick is likely to intensify rapidly.\u00a0 Hurricane Erick is likely to strengthen to a major hurricane by Thursday.<\/p>\n Hurricane Erick will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system over Central America and southern Mexico.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Erick toward the northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Hurricane Erick will move toward the coast of southern Mexico.\u00a0 Erick is likely to make landfall in southern Mexico between Acapulco and Punta Maldonado early on Thursday.<\/p>\n Hurricane Erick is likely to be a major hurricane when it makes landfall on the coast of Mexico.\u00a0 Erick will bring strong winds and heavy rain to parts of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Michoacan.\u00a0 The strongest winds and heaviest rains will occur in Guerrero.\u00a0 Heavy rain will cause flash floods in some locations.\u00a0 Hurricane Erick could also cause a storm surge of up to 10 feet (3 meters) along the coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hurricane Erick rapidly intensified to a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it moved over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean south of Mexico on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Erick was located at latitude 14.2\u00b0N and longitude 96.3\u00b0W which put the center about 215 miles (345 km) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[418,202,419,1557,1720,1558,24,1721,1747,2904,2907,2908,2725],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22452,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22451\/revisions\/22452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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