Monster Hurricane Jimena Vs. Past Hits
Hurricane Jimena has winds estimated to be 155 mph this morning, only 1 mph away from being a Category 5 storm. Some models are suggesting that she could hit the Baja Peninsula as a Cat 5 but official forecasts have her as a Cat 3.
There is still a chance she might veer off to the west, as some of the models say, but no official forecasts say that. So, what's the hurricane history of this area? Baja California (as the peninsula is named) is no stranger to landfalling tropical systems, according to the NOAA Hurricane GIS site (which goes back to 1949):
But only two "major" (Cat 3 or above) hurricanes have hit the region since 1949: Olivia in 1967 and Kiko in 1989. Olivia hit twice, amazingly going from a Tropical Storm to a Major Hurricane as it took a quick trip out into the Gulf of California!
No major hurricane has ever hit the western coast of Baja California, where we are predicting she will make landfall. Given that she will be almost parallel to the coast then, I believe she has the potential to do a lot of damage to a large area, but given the low population density it may be days or weeks before her true impact is known.
Unfortunately there are no buoys there and the Mexican radar at Los Cabos has been out since August 6, so we're kind of flying blind for this storm. Fortunately the NHC has made a number of recon flights into the storm to gather wind and pressure data.
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