page_title: 1972 Pacific hurricane season
section_title: Systems
hierarchical_section_title: 1972 Pacific hurricane season / Systems
caption_attribution_description: English: This ATS 1 weather satellite image of Tropical Cyclones Celeste, Diana, Estelle, and Fernanda was taken on August 18, 1972
context_page_description: The 1972 Pacific hurricane season was an ongoing event in tropical cyclone meteorology. There were few notable storms this year. Only one person was killed and storm effects were almost not serious at all. The most notable systems were Hurricane Celeste and Joanne. Celeste was the strongest storm of the season, and caused heavy damage to Johnston Atoll. Hurricane Joanne brought gale-force winds to the Continental United States and caused flooding in Arizona and northern Mexico, which killed one person. The only other system to directly impact land was Hurricane Annette.
  The season began on May 15, 1972, in the east Pacific, and on June 1, 1972, in the central Pacific. It ended on November 30, 1972. These dates conventionally delimit the period of time when tropical cyclones form in the east Pacific Ocean. This season had a below average number of storms. There were twenty tropical cyclones, four of which were in the central Pacific. Of those, four were tropical storms, eight were hurricanes, and four were major hurricanes that reached Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. In the central Pacific, two tropical storms and two tropical depressions formed.
context_section_description: Of this season's fourteen named tropical cyclones, twelve formed in the eastern Pacific and two in the central. Both central Pacific tropical cyclones were tropical storms. Of the eastern Pacific systems, four were tropical storms and eight were hurricanes. Of those eight hurricanes, four were major hurricanes because they peaked as Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.   Although these totals are below the modern long-term averages of fifteen named storms, nine hurricanes, and four major hurricanes, At the time, 1972 was the central north Pacific's busiest known season.
caption: This ATS 1 weather satellite image of Tropical Cyclones Celeste, Diana, Estelle, and Fernanda was taken on August 18, 1972
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