Tropical Storm Otto Pulling Away From Central America After a Record Late Hurricane Landfall in Nicaragua

November 25,2016
Tropical Storm Otto continues to move westward in the eastern Pacific Ocean, pulling away from Nicaragua and Costa Rica after a historically late hurricane landfall on Thanksgiving Day.
Otto made landfall just before 1 p.m. EST Thursday as a hurricane near the town of San Juan de Nicaragua in southern Nicaragua.
(LATEST NEWS: Otto Impacts Central America | Hurricane Central
Otto's hurricane landfall was the latest in any calendar year on record in the Atlantic Basin, according to Colorado State University tropical scientist, Dr. Phil Klotzbach.

Maximum sustained winds were 110 mph at landfall, making Otto a Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Otto intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 2 hurricane in less than 24 hours before landfall.
Otto is now over 295 miles south of the San Salvador, El Salvador, as of Friday evening.

Current Storm Status

The clockwise wind flow around high pressure to Otto's north is now steering the system westward after it was stalled for several days in the southwest Caribbean.

Projected Path

How Unusual Was This Late-Season Hurricane Landfall?

Put simply, Otto was a late November anomaly of record in several aspects, including the latest-in-calendar-year Atlantic basin hurricane landfall mentioned earlier.

• Tuesday (Nov. 24), Otto became the latest hurricane formation on record in the Caribbean Sea, surpassing Hurricane Martha in 1969, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
   
• Otto was the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record this late in the year, according to Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center.
   
• It's also the farthest south a hurricane has made landfall on record in Central America, according to Alex Lamers, a meteorologist and program coordinator with NOAA and NESDIS. 

It was over 10 months between the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season's first named storm, the aforementioned Alex, and Otto.

Only nine tropical cyclones became hurricanes anywhere in the Atlantic Basin after November 21 from 1950 through 2015. The last to do so was Epsilon in December 2005.
Only one of those nine hurricanes occurred in the southwest Caribbean Sea, Hurricane Martha in 1969.
According to NOAA's best track database, only 18 storms of at least tropical storm strength had formed in the Atlantic Basin on or after November 21 dating to 1950.
The last to do so was Tropical Storm Olga in December 2007.
Lastly, Otto was only the fifth tropical cyclone to have crossed from the Atlantic to eastern Pacific basin intact and the first to have done so in 20 years, according to Dr. Klotzbach. (Note, prior to the 2000-2001 season, it was decided these "crosser" storms would keep the same name, rather than attain a different name upon arriving in a different basin)

More November Perspective

November Atlantic Basin tropical cyclones aren't all that unusual.
In November, tropical cyclones typically form where the waters are warmest. Thus, one cluster of storms forming in November is in the western Caribbean Sea.
A second broad area of formation is in a broad swath of the western and central Atlantic Ocean, sometimes spinning off from an old frontal boundary, sometimes transitioning from a cold-core low to a subtropical or tropical cyclone.

Tropical cyclone origin points for November.

According to NOAA's best track database, there have been 36 Atlantic tropical cyclones of at least tropical storm strength in November from 1950 through 2015. Twenty of those became hurricanes.
Just eight years ago, Hurricane Paloma reached Category-4 intensity, the second-strongest November hurricane of record, damaging or destroying nearly every building on Cayman Brac, according to the National Hurricane Center's final report. "Paloma" was retired from the Atlantic hurricane name list following this event.
(MORE: Retired Atlantic Hurricane Names)
In the period of record from 1851 to 2014, no tropical storm or hurricane has impacted the western Gulf Coast from Texas to Mississippi.

November tropical storm and hurricane impacts in the United States

Systems that do develop across the Caribbean Sea can gain some organization, as the area has supported such late-season hurricanes as Kate in 1985 and Michelle in 2001. The former became the latest landfalling hurricane in Florida’s history on Nov. 21.
Since 1851, Florida has been impacted by eight tropical storms and hurricanes in November. The only other states with more than one November impact were also in the Southeast: Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina.
Typically, November tropical systems follow upper-level flow and cold fronts northeastward into the Atlantic Ocean.
In 2015, Hurricane Kate was an early-November oddity, forming from a tropical wave that first soaked the Lesser Antilles, then becoming the farthest north hurricane so late in the season on record north of Bermuda.
By the way, Atlantic Basin tropical storms even form in December, and January, on rare occasions.
Check back with us at weather.com for the latest on this tropical cyclone.

MORE: Hurricane Otto, November 2016