Category 5 hurricane Otis slammed into the coast of Mexico on Wednesday, leaving widespread destruction in its wake that can be seen in images from space.
Otis, which strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just 12 hours, hit Mexico's Guerrero state with wind speeds as high as 165 mph.
Twenty-seven people are thought to have died in the storm's aftermath, with another four missing, according to Mexican Secretary of Security Rosa Icela Rodríguez.
One of the worst-hit areas was the beach resort town of Acapulco, which had up to 80 percent of its hotels damaged and widespread flooding in the streets.
Satellite images of the area released by Maxar Technologies show before and after the storm hit, highlighting the destruction caused by the storm. The images reveal how several hotels have been shredded by the powerful winds, while the marina was torn apart by the gusts and storm surges.
Otis is thought to be one of the fastest-intensifying hurricanes in world history because of the rapid speed of its intensification. Hurricanes form in the moist, warm areas over the tropical ocean. The rising warm air starts to spin, with clouds forming as cooler air from above is pulled in. As the tropical storm strengthens, it spins faster and faster, becoming a hurricane once wind speeds exceed 74 mph. It is a Category 5 hurricane if wind speeds reach 157 mph or more.
The direction that a storm takes depends on several factors, mainly the strong environmental winds that steer the vortex toward or away from land.
"Hurricanes are pushed along by the winds throughout the atmosphere, so oftentimes slight differences in these winds will dramatically adjust its path," Quinton Lawton, a Ph.D. researcher in atmospheric sciences, told Newsweek.
"This is also caused by other weather systems surrounding the storm, so if the forecast for those other systems changes, it can also affect the hurricane path," said Lawton, who is at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at the University of Miami.
"How strong a hurricane is can affect its path as well," he continued. "This is because hurricanes are getting pushed along by winds throughout the atmosphere, and stronger hurricanes are often taller. This means a strong storm may feel winds at different levels than a weaker hurricane, changing its path."
In Otis' aftermath, 500,000 people across Acapulco were left without power. They were plunged into darkness on Tuesday night as the hurricane ravaged the town and tore down power poles. About 10,000 troops from Mexico's armed forces came to the region on Thursday to help, along with about 1,000 people from Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission, who were attempting to restore electricity to the area.
Hurricanes will only get more powerful and more frequent in the future as the effects of climate change intensify.
"The science on how hurricanes will change in the future is fairly complex and not entirely settled, but a few things are generally accepted," Daniel Wright, a civil and environmental engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Hydroclimate Extremes Research Group, previously told Newsweek.
"There might not be more hurricanes overall, but those that do form will tend to be more intense both in terms of the strength of their winds and the amount of rainfall that they produce," he said. "Because of this intensification and also due to some potential changes in the directions that storms tend to move, it is probable that there will be more Category 4 and 5 storms hitting the U.S."
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Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jess Thomson is a Newsweek Science Reporter based in London UK. Her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. ... Read more
