Tropical Storm Agatha Mexico

Tropical storm is predicted to rapidly intensify and could cross Mexico and become storm threat in Gulf of Mexico later next week.

“Life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides may occur,” the Hurricane Center wrote. The National Hurricane Center wrote that the storm is in “near ideal environmental conditions” for intensification; it is passing over very warm ocean waters, which help fuel storms, and will encounter a lack of hostile upper-level winds that could disrupt thunderstorm development. Conditions are expected to deteriorate in the hurricane-watch zone starting Sunday night, with the worst conditions on Monday, as the storm makes landfall.

The storm could pack winds as high as 100 mph at landfall, and forecasters warned of "potentially life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides."

By contrast, NOAA predicted the 2022 hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean will produce above-average activity, with a likely range of more than 20 named storms to occur. Earlier this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a below-normal 2022 season for hurricanes in the eastern Pacific Ocean. On Saturday morning, the center of the tropical storm was located about 220 miles southwest of Puerto Angel, with winds of 45 mph.

Hurricane watches are posted for portions of the southern coast of Mexico as the first named storm of the 2022 eastern Pacific hurricane season, Tropical Storm ...

In its May 24 seasonal forecast, NOAA predicted a below-average 2022 hurricane season in both the eastern Pacific (for storms affecting Mexico) and the central Pacific (for storms affecting Hawaii). NOAA in its eastern Pacific outlook called for a 70% probability of 10-17 named storms, with 4-8 expected to become hurricanes, including 0-3 major hurricanes. A summary of the 2021 Pacific named storms to do damage in Mexico: La Niña conditions typically lead to relatively quiet hurricane seasons in both the eastern and central Pacific as a result of cooler-than-average ocean temperatures and higher wind shear. However, five of 2021’s eastern Pacific named storms hit Mexico, and a sixth, Enrique, did $50 million in damage. Moisture from Olaf also brought flood damage to the states of Jalisco and Colima. No research has been published thus far showing a change in the length of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season. However, Juliana Karloski and Clark Evans of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found no trend in tropical cyclone formation dates when looking at the entire Atlantic for the period 1979–2014. Most models, but not all, projected an increase in the length of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season in a future warmer climate. Steering currents favor a track bending to the northeast Sunday and Monday, with landfall in southeastern Mexico occurring Monday afternoon or evening. Looking at the longer-term statistics for the eastern Pacific, there is no evidence that hurricane season is starting earlier (Figure 3). In some ocean basins, climate change may inhibit early-season genesis events by decreasing these other factors needed for a hurricane to get started. Agatha formed at 5 a.m. EDT Saturday, May 28, and it is poised to intensify into a rare early-season category 2 hurricane before landfall.