page_title: Hurricane Willa
section_title: Mexico
hierarchical_section_title: Hurricane Willa / Impact / Mexico
caption_attribution_description: English: On Nov. 1, 2018, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured a false-color view of flooding along the Nueces River in a series of storms that have delivered historic amounts of rain to central Texas. The remnants of the category 3 storm, Hurricane Willa, weakened Texas dry terrain, pushing in a stream of moisture and rain. The deluge saturated soils, overfilled lakes and reservoirs, and pushed rivers over their banks. One river even flowed backwards. Dallas Fort Worth Airport recorded 39.77 centimeters (15.66 inches) of rain in October 2018, making it the wettest October on record there, according to the National Weather Service.
context_page_description: Hurricane Willa was a powerful tropical cyclone that brought torrential rains and destructive winds to southwestern Mexico, particularly the states of Sinaloa and Nayarit, during late-October 2018. It was the twenty-fifth tropical cyclone, twenty-second named storm, thirteenth hurricane, tenth major hurricane, and record-tying third Category 5 hurricane of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season. Willa was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the Mexican state of Sinaloa since Lane in 2006.
  Willa originated from a tropical wave that the United States-based National Hurricane Center began to monitor for tropical cyclogenesis in the southwestern Caribbean Sea on October 14. However, the system subsequently crossed over Central America into the East Pacific, without significant organization. The NHC continued to track the disturbance until it developed into a tropical depression on October 20, off the coast of southwestern Mexico. The depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Willa later in the day as a period of rapid intensification commenced. Willa peaked as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 160 mph on the following day.
context_section_description: The eye of Hurricane Willa crossed over two of the offshore Islas Marías, producing wind gusts of 112 mph (179 km/h), and average sustained winds of 89 mph (142 km/h) for a 15-minute period; the latter value equated to 1-minute sustained winds of around 100 mph (160 km/h). The Marías Islands prison was damaged during the storm; palm trees were uprooted, roofs collapsed, and barbed wire was ripped from fences.
  On the Mexican mainland, storm chasers from iCyclone reported a minimum pressure of 968 mbar (28.6 inHg) where Willa's eye moved ashore, suggesting a landfall intensity of 115 mph (185 km/h). Willa produced hurricane-force wind gusts as well as high waves and a significant storm surge in the immediate vicinity of where it moved ashore. Willa dropped heavy rainfall in western Mexico, peaking at 15.39 in (391 mm) in San Andrés Milpillas in northern Nayarit. Cihuatlán in western Jalisco reported 13.17 in (335 mm) of rainfall. Intense precipitation occurred in six Mexican states – Colima, Durango, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, and Sinaloa. The storm left 96,200 people without power in four states: Sinaloa, where it moved ashore, as well as Nayarit, Durango, and Michoacán.
caption: Landsat image of the Nueces River overflowing its banks, November 1, 2018.
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