The U.S. National Hurricane Center advisory said the first tropical storm of the Pacific season was about 240 miles southwest of Manzanillo on the western Mexican coast and moving northwest at about four miles per hour. The storm’s maximum sustained winds are still at 53 miles per hour and would have to reach 74 miles per hour to be declared a hurricane.
In May, the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration forecasted a tamer hurricane season than usual on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In the Pacific there’s a 70 percent chance of 13 to 18 named storms, with about 10 hurricanes. Last year, the Pacific saw seven storms that reached hurricane status.
Image of Tropical Storm Andres courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Brendan Borrell is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. He writes for Bloomberg Businessweek, Nature, Outside, Scientific American, and many other publications, and is the co-author (with ecologist Manuel Molles) of the textbook Environment: Science, Issues, Solutions. He traveled to Brazil with the support of the Mongabay Special Reporting Initiative. Follow him on Twitter @bborrell.
