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Hurricane warnings are in effect from Bahia Tempehuaya to Escuinapa, Mexico, where the most direct impacts from Pamela are set to occur. Tropical storm warnings are up along the coastline on either side of the hurricane warning.
The National Hurricane Center writes that “significant and life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides” are possible due to the storm’s heavy rainfall. The mountainous terrain of western Mexico will exacerbate flood concerns even more and threaten rural communities.
The storm will quickly decay as it moves inland, but its moisture could interact with a cold front to drop a strip of heavy rainfall in Texas. Some spots, including around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, could see 3 to 6 inches of rain, resulting in localized flood concern. Flash flood watches blanket a swath of the Lone Star State from the Mexican border to Oklahoma.
Pamela, currently
As of 11 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday morning, Pamela was an 80 mph Category 1 hurricane. It was located about 250 miles southwest of Mazatlan, and was moving due north at 13 mph.
On satellite, it appeared that Pamela had plateaued in organization temporarily, but it will likely continue maturing and strengthening in the hours ahead. A massive “convective burst,” or robust plume of thunderstorm activity, was noted on infrared satellite shortly after midnight, but thunderstorm activity had briefly faltered around sunrise. A new batch of shower and thunderstorm growth was cropping up shortly thereafter, and signs pointed to a forthcoming uptick in intensity.
Sea surface temperatures are more than sufficient to support an expedited strengthening of Pamela, with readings between 85 and 87 degrees. Upper-level winds are weak enough so as to not perturb Pamela’s growth, but there is no upper-level high pressure ridge to enhance Pamela’s outflow. Outflow describes the “exhaust” air being evacuated from a storm at its upper levels. More efficient outflow means a storm can ingest more warm, moist air at the low levels and intensify.
The National Hurricane Center is bullish on Pamela’s prospects, predicting the hurricane to make landfall Wednesday morning as a high-end Category 2 storm. The strongest wind gusts will be relegated to the immediate coastline southeast of the storm’s center.
Widespread rainfall totals of 5 to 10 inches with localized amounts exceeding a foot are expected in Sinaloa and western Durgano, as well as the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula. The heaviest rain will fall along the shoreline, as well as on the windward side of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains; the higher terrain will be susceptible to flash flooding and mudslides, which can wreak havoc on more rural communities or those with vulnerable infrastructure.
Concern growing in Texas
The storm will quickly weaken as it treks inland away from the ocean, its energy source. Its leftover moisture will continue northeast, however, interacting with a cold front that will be stalled and draped across the central U.S. and southern Plains.
The first rounds of rainfall will cross the Rio Grande as early as Tuesday afternoon and evening as moisture precedes the storm; the actual remnants from Pamela will make it into Texas by late Wednesday into Thursday.
Cities like San Antonio and Austin, which could get in on the initial rounds of rain, may tally 2 to 4 inches of precipitation, but a more concentrated band of 3 to 6 inches with sporadic greater amounts may snarl areas like Dallas, Fort Worth and parts of the Interstate 35 corridor. Rainfall rates in the torrential tropical downpours may top an inch per hour.
There’s also a nonzero risk of an isolated tornado occurring thanks to the leftover spin associated with what by then will be Pamela’s remnants.
Where hurricane season stands
Pamela marks the sixteenth named storm of the 2021 Northeast Pacific hurricane season, which is pretty typical for the date. The eastern Pacific has failed to produce its usual barrage of high-intensity storms, however, and is lagging about 30 percent behind average for ACE, or Accumulated Cyclone Energy. That’s a metric of how much atmospheric energy storms expend on their winds, and is a product of storm strength and duration.
That’s contrary to the Atlantic, which is 56 percent above its normal level. Long-lived storms like Larry and Sam were instrumental in racking up a big total, even if only one violent hurricane, Ida, impacted land at peak strength.
It’s ordinary for the two ocean basins to balance out in a sense; when one is experiencing a busy season, that’s usually tied to rising air, which has to sink somewhere else (like in the Pacific). Meteorologists refer to that east to west overturning as the Walker Circulation, and is one of a number of factors that provide clues for how a hurricane season will shape up.
In the meantime, the eastern Pacific is quiet outside of Pamela, and the Atlantic is mostly tranquil save for two minor systems that are unlikely to develop.
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