Hurricane Sandra Becomes Latest Major Hurricane on Record; May Brush Los Cabos, Mexico

November 25,2015

Hurricane Sandra is steadily intensifying, and became the latest major hurricane on record early Wednesday evening. This rare late-season hurricane, while later weakening quickly, may limp ashore in Los Cabos, Mexico this weekend.
Here is the latest information on Sandra:

• Location: About 645 miles south of Los Cabos, Mexico
• Movement: Curling north, then accelerating toward the northeast. Sandra may brush the southern Baja California peninsula near Cabo San Lucas early Saturday, then should move into Sinaloa, Durango or Chihuahua states later this weekend.
• Intensity: Still strengthening, Sandra is a major (Category 3) hurricane and could continue to strengthen some into Thursday. It then will weaken quickly after getting caught up in the subtropical jet stream. Sandra may weaken to a tropical storm or depression before brushing Cabo San Lucas, and could be a depression or even remnant low before ever making a landfall in mainland Mexico this weekend.
• Impacts: Despite a later weakening trend, locally heavy rain and flash flooding are possible in the southern Baja California peninsula as soon as Friday and in the above-mentioned Mexican states where Sandra limps ashore Saturday. Some moisture from Sandra may also pump into a heavy rain event in the southern Plains of the U.S.

Rarieties and Records

• Sandra is the strongest hurricane so late in the season. Only three other eastern Pacific storms have formed later in the calendar than Sandra in records dating to 1949.
• Hurricane Sandra became the second latest forming hurricane on record, behind Hurricane Winnie in 1983.
• There is no record of an intact depression or named storm making a landfall on either Baja California or Mexico's Pacific coast so late in the season. According to hurricane specialist Michael Lowry, "If Sandra makes landfall as a tropical storm, it would be the latest landfall on record in the eastern Pacific."
• The previous latest major hurricane in either the central-eastern Pacific or Atlantic was an unnamed storm in 1934, that remained a major hurricane into Nov. 23.
• Sandra is the 30th Category 3+ tropical cyclone of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, far exceeded the previous record of 23 such storms in 1997 and 2004.

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Latest Storm Information and Projected Path

Satellite and Storm Information

Projected Path and Intensity

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