Friday morning, and Rachel is still in the hallway.
She is just a little farther down it than she was yesterday.
After finally looking like a hurricane on purpose Thursday, she spent the afternoon getting prettier than the forecast had booked her for. A ragged eye appeared. Cloud tops dropped to around −80°C. The 2 PM advisory lifted her to 120 mph.
That is Category 3.
Then the outfit started coming apart.
8 AM MST Advisory 22
- Category 2 hurricane
- 110 mph
- 959 mb
- Moving west at 6 mph
- Center near 19.3°N, 110.8°W
- About 255 miles south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California
- Passing just north of Socorro Island
There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.
Hurricane-force winds extend about 45 miles from the center, while tropical-storm-force winds extend about 150 miles.
Small core. Long wake. Same guest.
Socorro’s weather station has already met her.
Sustained winds reached 57 mph, with a gust to 79 mph.
That is the hallway, not the house.
Personality check
Yesterday, she picked an outfit.
Last night, she tried on a louder one.
The 2 PM discussion had Rachel at 120 mph, with a peak of 130 mph still on the table. By 8 PM, she was holding steady. By 2 AM, the eye had become obscured, dry air was leaking into the circulation from the northeast, and intensity had dropped to 115 mph.
Microwave imagery still showed the inner core intact.
She hadn’t fallen apart.
She had just stopped looking finished.
This morning, she is down to 110 mph and still crawling west.
The forecast from here is more of the same, only quieter: some additional weakening over the next day or two, although Rachel is expected to remain a hurricane for several more days.
A mid-level ridge building to her north should eventually give her a shove, increasing her forward speed and keeping her moving generally westward, with a slight bend back toward west-northwest early next week.
She is not aimed at the Arch.
She is taking the long way out.
And she is not in a hurry.
Why the shine came off — in one sentence
Dry air got into the circulation, a little shear is still tugging at her, and she has been sitting nearly still over cooler water.
Slow storms can cool their own bathtub.
Rachel has had time.
This wasn’t an eyewall replacement.
Just a guest who peaked in the driveway.
Cabo, specifically
Point forecasts for the tip are still not a washout.
Friday looks breezy, generally around 15 to 25 mph, easing through the weekend and into lighter winds early next week. Temperatures stay in the familiar groove: upper 70s at night and mid to upper 80s in the afternoon.
Rain is the messier conversation, because the ground already had a September.
One personal weather station near Médano logged close to 10 inches last month.
That same station has about 1.82 inches on the board for October already—and October is only two days old.
Rachel is offshore and barely moving, and her outer bands are still finding the tip.
The models do not agree on how much more rain Cabo could see.
ECMWF is the drier read. GFS and the meteoblue blend paint a wetter Sunday morning, on the order of a half inch to around an inch in spots if the heavier solution wins. ICON sits somewhere in between.
So call it what it is:
A maybe, not a headline.
Sprinkles and a shower are the floor.
A soggy Sunday is the ceiling.
Not a repeat of September.
And not nothing, either, when the ground is already full.
And because weather stations apparently wanted their own subplot…
One local personal weather station has apparently decided Cabo is now located somewhere between the surface of the sun and the inside of a jet engine. 😂
119°F.
214-mph wind.
233-mph gusts.
No.
That’s not Rachel.
That’s a weather station having a very bad day. 🙃
Automated weather stations can be incredibly useful, but they can also malfunction. One rogue sensor doesn’t suddenly rewrite the weather across Los Cabos.
The weather station gets a cameo. Reality gets the final word.
The real local product is still the flags.
ZOFEMAT — Friday, October 2
Cabo San Lucas: black flags across the listed beaches, including Las Tinajas, Curva del Soldado, Migriño, El Corsario, Médano Breathless, Hacienda, Casa Dorada, Me Cabo, both Pueblo Bonitos, Club Cascadas de Baja, Villa del Palmar, Villa del Arco, Villa La Estancia, the Rius, Las Viudas, Santa Maria, El Chileno and El Tule.
Black flag means the beach is closed.
San José del Cabo: black flags at Palmilla, Acapulquito, Costa Azul, Las Palmas and La Playa.
Zona Norte: red flags from La Ribera through Surgidero, El Dátil/Capilla, Spa Buena Vista and La Gaviota.
Red means no swimming.
Rachel’s swells continue working the west-central Mexico coast and the Baja California Peninsula through the weekend.
Life-threatening surf and rip currents are the hazard that actually reaches the sand.
That is the Cabo chapter.
Not a landfall.
A closed beach, a breeze, and a storm that will not speed up.
The pink blob
Disturbance 1, south of southern Mexico, is still a later bookmark.
Formation chances over the next two days are near 0 percent. Over seven days, that rises to 80 percent.
A low is expected to form late this weekend or early next week, with a tropical depression likely by the middle of next week, drifting slowly west-northwest to northwest.
If it earns a name, we’ll talk about it.
Not before Rachel finishes walking west.
One last thing…
Rachel has been offshore and barely moving, and a lot of us would like her to hurry the hell up. 😂
So what has it actually looked like from your side?
Los Cabos. Todos Santos. Los Cerritos. The East Cape. La Paz. The mainland.
Rain gauge total.
Wind on the patio.
Surf too big for the beach you wanted.
Nothing but clouds.
Or maybe… nothing at all.
Tell us where you are and what Rachel has actually done while she refuses to leave. ❤️
The forecast says she stays south and weakens on her way out.
You tell us what the slow version felt like.
Official information
National Hurricane Center:
https://www.hurricanes.gov/
As always, official forecasts and local authorities are the place to go for current watches, warnings and safety information.
