Felicia becomes a dreadful Category 4 hurricane, the first major storm of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season 2021

By Edward Era Barbacena

It has been two weeks of pretty calm hurricane season over the Eastern Pacific, but the tropical cyclone activity is now ramping up. A very powerful hurricane Felicia is grazing west over the Eastern Pacific Basin this weekend, becoming the first major hurricane of the season Friday afternoon. A monster Category 4 storm should soon be followed by another tropical storm, Guillermo is expected to arrive in the coming days.

A major Category 4 hurricane Felicia is packing 145 mph (125 knots) winds and has a minimum central pressure of 947 mbar. The satellite imagery indicates a very impressive structure of the system, an almost symmetrical ring of very cold cloud tops with a clear eye and a pretty small hurricane size.

Hurricane Felicia is moving west, away from the land of Central America, and will soon get a company. A rapidly developing new tropical cyclone, designated as Seven-E, is further east of Felicia’s position, also tracking west. It is expected to become a Tropical Storm Guillermo in the coming days.

The development of Felicia was pretty fast. On Wednesday morning a Tropical Depression 6-E formed and very quickly intensified to a named Tropical Storm Felicia. It then strengthened into a hurricane less than 24 hours later, on Thursday. Therefore becoming the second hurricane of the Eastern Pacific season.

Felicia is the 6th tropical cyclone of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season 2021 and also the strongest system so far. Taking this title from Hurricane Enrique which was the first hurricane of the Pacific season peaking as a Category 1 storm at the end of June.

The satellite animation below is showing a pretty spectacular symmetry of Felicia, being a tiny but violent hurricane with a huge eye. The typical appearance of a buzz saw. Animation includes Infrared, Water Vapor, and Visible satellite spectrum imagery.

On Saturday, Hurricane Felicia remains a Category 4 storm, tracking west across the Eastern Pacific and its trajectory could potentially bring it to the south of Hawaii about the next weekend. The system is moving westward with near 7 knots.

The maximum sustained winds have quickly risen to hurricane strength on Thursday, reaching around 90-100 knots. Hurricane Felicia then continued gradually intensifying while tracking further west across the East Pacific. Based on the recent satellite imagery this Saturday, a noticeable contraction of the storm’s core caused another significant jump in its maximum sustained wind speeds.

TROPICAL STORM GUILLERMO WILL FOLLOW HURRICANE FELICIA IN THE COMING DAY1

The broad low-pressure system was tracking west with a convective activity well offshore the southwestern coast of Mexico over the last few days and has finally developed enough organized deep convection and a well-defined inner-core wind field to be classified as a tropical depression.

Seven-E still does not have a deep center yet, so its initial westward motion is still uncertain, but the center of the ongoing complex of storms is generally moving with 15 knots. It has estimated maximum sustained winds of 30 knots.