Australian Severe Weather Forum

Hurricane Rick, a category 3 storm, is located in the Pacific Ocean of the southern coast of Mexico. Its center is approx. 402km southwest of Acapulco.
At present, 17/10/09, at 8.50pm EST, the storm has sustained winds of 185km/h.
The day image shows a clear and well defined eyewall that developed during the course of the day. I have also posted a track map of the storms predicted trajectory for the next few days.


Col

The latest update on Hurricane Rick is :

he has strengthened into an "extremely dangerous" Category 5 storm off Mexico's Pacific coast Saturday and forecasters said it could strike the Baja California Peninsula next week.

The storm had sustained winds of 160 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reported, though it said the storm was likely to lose some of that punch before hitting land.  ( MSNBC)

At this stage the track map is still on Par with previous post, but it is interesting to look at the day image of the eye and how he has  strengthened over the last few hours

NOAA has stated that with 180mp/h ( 285 Km/h) wind Rick has become the second strongest Hurricane in the eastern Pacific after Linda in 1997. The full summary of Rick from NOAA is:

THE SATELLITE PRESENTATION OF HURRICANE RICK CAN BE EXPRESSED IN ONE
WORD...SPECTACULAR. THE EYE IS QUITE DISTINCT AND IS SURROUNDED BY
VERY DEEP CONVECTION. ON THE LAST AVAILABLE VISIBLE IMAGES ONE
COULD SEE THE SUNLIGHT REFLECTING OFF THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE
EYEWALL AND THE STADIUM EFFECT THAT IS TYPICAL OF INTENSE
HURRICANES. MORE IMPORTANTLY...SUBJECTIVE T-NUMBERS ARE 7.0 AND 7.5
ON THE DVORAK SCALE FROM TAFB AND SAB RESPECTIVELY...AND THE
OBJECTIVE T-NUMBERS HAVE REACHED 7.7 AND A 3-HOUR AVERAGE OF 7.4
DURING THE PAST HOUR OR SO.  BASED ON THESE DATA..THE INITIAL
INTENSITY HAS BEEN INCREASED TO 155 KNOTS. THIS MAKES RICK THE
SECOND STRONGEST HURRICANE ON RECORD IN THE EASTERN PACIFIC AFTER
LINDA IN 1997.

As of about an hour ago (11pm AEST) - Hurricane Rick had slowed somewhat from Cat5 to Cat3. The storm is still heading towards Baja Peninsula and Mexico State - maybe with winds around 80-100mph when it does reach land - it is currently around 125mph winds with gusts to 135mps.. (source: Accuweather.com)

Big Pete

Rick has run into a serious shear gradient at 10-20 knots and with the enviromental moisture rapidly drying will likely die soon. Weakening as noted by Big Pete seems to have been due to a combination of an Eyewall replacement cycle together with an increasing shear environ. Currently Cat 1 at 85 knots, cyclone expected to weaken below hurricane status in 24 hours.

We got a ton of rain from Rick. It just will not dry out here. We were so close to drying out then in came Rick, LOL.