El/La Duradera

**El/La Duradera** is a tropical weather event that happens when eastern winds from the dry South America meets the southern winds from Antarctica, typically creating circulations in the South Atlantic if it's a La Duradera, but if it is an El Duradera, it's typically winds from the western, cold part of South America meeting northern tropical winds, creating a large circulation. Both El and La Duradera create circulations ranging from a small portion of 500 miles in the South Atlantic, to about 2,500 miles, around almost the entire South Atlantic. First, a low must exit either South America going east/west, or Antarctica going north, or the North Pacific going south for a possible La/El Duradera, then the circulation circles the low, giving it enough moisture to produce some pretty intense storms. Most of the major storms happen from July-October, but a few of them can happen from November-June.

## History

In the late 1800s, ships around the Southern Atlantic heading from Africa to South America reported strong, intense storms that were about the size of a hurricane and bringing easy hurricane force winds, and because on their 3 month journey, they encountered a ton of these storms, they called it 'La Duradera' or 'The Lasting South' because they were in the South Atlantic. More documentation happened, in the early 1900s, a group of ships sailing from South America to Mexico reported storms with hurricane force winds, and on their 1 1/2 month journey, they encountered these storms all the time, calling it 'El Duradera' for the South Pacific.

## Categorizing

### La Duradera

 Category 1 La Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 2 La Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 3 La Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 4 La Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 5 La Duradera (**KMC**)

### El Duradera

 Category 1 El Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 2 El Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 3 El Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 4 El Duradera (**KMC**)
 Category 5 El Duradera (**KMC**)

## Naming

They still use the same naming list unless it is a Category 5 El or La Duradera, where lead meteorologists, CEOs, etc. from weather centers such as KMC, BNWC, SMWC, etc. meet at an undisclosed location near Cairo, Egypt in the skyscraper area to discuss a new naming list, which includes all letters from A-Z, and they might even exhaust the Greek or Hebrew naming list, if that happens, they come up with one or two more naming lists, which every year, they have to list Duradera or Duradero on the naming list, even if it got retired or not.

## Occurrence

Typically, La Duraderas happen once every 15-20 years, and they last sometimes all year, but mostly, 6-7 months at the most, bringing at least 15+ named storms to the South Atlantic. Meanwhile, El Duraderas are slightly less common, occurring at 25 years usually, bringing usually 10+ more storms than average to the South Pacific. However, there are some systems that go down to 900mb or below, usually being the shorter lasting ones.

## Anti Duradera

This can happen in either basin, but an Anti-Duradera prohibits ANY activity in the South Atlantic or Pacific. Usually, storms that manage to form only go up to 70mph at the maximum, before dissipating. Typically, this occurs every 75 years or so.