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| Mexico Storms Leave 47 Dead, Strand Tourists in Acapulco |
One hundred rivers and streams have overflowed and 91 highways are waterlogged to varying degrees after Hurricane Ingrid moved in from the Bay of Campeche and Tropical Depression Manuel hit from the Pacific, Osorio Chong said in a radio interview yesterday. The army has rescued 500 people trapped in Acapulco after the city’s airport and highways were affected by heavy rains, he said.
Manuel regained strength in the Pacific, threatening more rain on Mexico’s west coast, as forecasters watched a new tropical system that may follow Hurricane Ingrid’s footprint and bring another round of flooding to the East. Manuel, which had degenerated from a tropical storm to a remnant low, is expected to become a tropical storm again by early today, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
“It’s still raining in many cities and in large portions of the country,” Osorio Chong said in his interview with Radio Formula. The government is working to “protect the lives of people who live in towns where rains are most intense.”
‘Eerily Similar’
Close to 40,000 people have already been evacuated nationwide and it will take days to completely clear highways out of Acapulco, the minister said.
A tropical storm watch was issued from Mazatlan to Altata on Mexico’s western coast and along the east coast of the Baja California peninsula from San Evaristo to Cabo San Lucas. Manuel was about 80 miles (129 kilometers) west-southwest of Mazatlan with winds of 35 miles per hour, and may drop as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain on parts of the peninsula, the Hurricane Center said in an advisory at 8 p.m. New York time yesterday.
A large area of thunderstorms and low pressure drifting northwest across Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula has a 60 percent chance of becoming tropical within five days, said the hurricane center yesterday.
“It’s actually eerily similar to the whole Ingrid evolution,” said Michael Schlacter, founder of Weather 2000 Inc. in New York. “Ingrid went in just north of Tampico and that is the kind of scenario here.”
Heavy Rains
Ingrid and Manuel drenched Mexico starting late last week.
The new system “will likely spread heavy rains over eastern Mexico,” the center said. “These rains could cause life-threatening floods and mud slides over areas already impacted by torrential rains associated with Ingrid and Manuel.”
The system, like Ingrid, may cross the Bay of Campeche, where Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico’s state-owned oil company known as Pemex, has its two largest oil fields, which produce about 1.25 million barrels a day.
A U.S. Air Force Reserve reconnaissance flight is scheduled to investigate the latest Gulf system, according to the hurricane center in Miami.
Water temperature in the Bay of Campeche is about 84 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (29 to 30 Celsius) and there is low wind shear there, meaning conditions are conducive for strengthening, said Dan Kottlowski, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.
“It looks to me that it has a pretty good chance to develop,” Kottlowski said by telephone.
Storm Patterns
So far this season, the eastern coast of Mexico has been struck by a tropical depression, two tropical storms and a hurricane. Weather patterns that kept the southern U.S. warmer than normal through the summer have helped steer storms on an east-to-west path through the Caribbean and southern Gulf of Mexico, Schlacter said.
“It goes hand-in-hand with our ridge and heat regimes across the U.S.,” Schlacter said.
The hurricane center is also tracking Tropical Storm Humberto in the Atlantic. The system is about 1,045 miles west-southwest of the Azores with top sustained winds of 45 mph. It isn’t an immediate threat to land.
A system becomes a tropical storm when its winds reach 39 mph and a hurricane when winds hit 74 mph.
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