Hurricane Patricia

[Jim Eshelman]

(10/23/2015)

Mexico's west coast is being devastated. Hurricane Patricia made landfall near Cuixmala, Mexico about 6:15 PM this evening with 165 mph winds. More on this when I get home later tonight.

UPDATE 6:47 PM. The winds are expected to hit 200 mph, which will be the largest hurricane I've worked with - maybe the largest on record - and as much a s20 inches of ran. (However, it was 200 mph out in the ocean, so the stories might be getting mixed up.) Though the main reports have been saying landfall at 6:15 PM near Cuixmala (another report said "55 miles WNW of Manzanillo"), the Mexican water commission claims first landfall was 5:40 PM at Emiliano Zapata. Patricia is only the second Pacific Ocean Category 5 hurricane ever to make landfall, the first being the 1959.

QUESTION: Is Cuixmala the same as Cuitzmala in Jalisco, 19N23 104W59? It seems near enough to Manzanillo, which is 19N03 104W20.

Emiliano Zapata is 17N49 91W46. This is a clear location, and I'm going with the Mexican government's report of first landfall.

[Jim Eshelman]

October 23, 2015, 5:40 PM CDT, Emiliano Zapata, Mexico

Year: Capsolar (Dormant.) Moon-Jupiter sq. (2°01')

Year: Cansolar {+1 Good}
Saturn on Asc (2°06'(
Venus sq. Asc (0°28')
-- Venus-Saturn sq. (1°15')
Neptune on IC (6°35')
Jupiter on MC (7°09')
-- Ju/Ne on meridian (0°16')

Bridge
t. Saturn sq. Cansolar MC 9/28-11/7

Quarter: Libsolar {0 Neutral}
Moon on EP (0°25')

Month: Caplunar (Dormant.)

Week: Liblunar {+1 Good}
Pluto on IC (1°54')
Uranus on Dsc (7°04')
Sun on Asc (8°22')
-- Sun-Uranus op. (1°18' in mundo)
Mercury on Asc (9°06')

Day: Capsolar Quotidian
p. Asc op. s. Uranus (0°47'), sq. t. Pluto (1°06'), sq. s. Pluto (1°38')

Day: Cansolar Quotidian & Transits
p. Asc conj. t. Neptune (0°04')
p. MC sq. t. Venus (0°39')
-----------------------------------
t. Saturn sq. s. MC (0°23')

SUMMARY
Year (Capsolar): (Dormant.) Moon-Jupiter.
Year (Cansolar, +1): Venus Saturn (Jupiter Neptune). Venus-Saturn Ju/Ne.
Bridge: Saturn (Cap).
-- Quarter (0): Moon.
Month: (Dormant.)
Week (+1): Pluto (Sun Uranus Mercury). Sun-Uranus.
Day (CapQ, +2): Uranus Pluto.
Day (Cansolar, +2): Venus, Neptune (CanQ). Saturn (transit).

[Jim Eshelman]

Cuixmala is close to the coast at 19°22'30.8"N 105°00'32.7"W. Emiliano Zapata is further inland on the Cuitzmala river. Either is close enough, especially with a storm this big. It's an area with relatively low population.

[Jim Eshelman]

I should add - for a "worst ever," this is a pretty poor showing.

Major hurricanes are most marked by Pluto, Saturn, and Mars, more likely to have Moon-Saturn and Moon-Pluto aspects than usual, a real shortage of Venus angular and aspecting Moon, and a near-perfect record of having precipitation planets (Jupiter, Venus, limited Moon) in the Caplunar and other lunar ingresses. Among non-lunar aspects, the most common foreground aspects are Uranus-Pluto and Saturn-Pluto, backed by Mars-Neptune, Saturn-Neptune, and Mars-Uranus.

These charts look more like a minor hurricane at best, not a "worst ever." Consider...

The Cansolar has the ambivalence of all of the major charts for this summer, with Saturn and some Neptune aspecting and overlapping with Jupiter and Venus. Yes, Venus-Saturn is common for "loss of life and circumstances," but not really for hurricanes. OK, we give that a pass, and we get some Saturn, some tragedy, a little distant Neptune, but enough Jupiter to match it. The best we can do on this is to say it is just the start of our looking, creates an astrological context that might (with other charts) lead to a disaster, and we need to wait and see what happens next...

The one sterling showing: Transiting Saturn's square to Cansolar MC marked out September 28 to November 7 is a time when something really bad could happen in the area. This Bridge system is proving really useful and nearly always clear and well-targeted. OK, that's good (that it was bad).

The Libsolar is tepid and essentially irrelevant. I'd have felt better if it were fully dormant.

The Caplunar is dormant, and the Liblunar, flowing through to be the effective chart of the week, is unsatisfying. Yes, Pluto is close on the angles - crisis, the most common hurricane aspect, etc. - but then the rest of the chart describes this primarily by a foreground Sun-Uranus opposition. Sure, "the psychologically (and often physically) startling and explosive" is more or les true (though I'm not sure how unexpected this was with days of build-up), but it isn't at all a pattern we see in major hurricanes. For example, in the "worst of the worst" hurricanes already studied in SMA, there isn't a single Sun-Uranus aspect to be found. A few earthquakes and an avalanche, some surprising fires, the Oklahoma City bombing and Hindenburg explosion, attack on Pearl Harbor... this is the kind of disaster we expect from Sun-Uranus, all truly surprising and explosive.

The day is good. Uranus-Pluto on the Q angles brings not only Pluto itself, but the single most common aspect in major hurricanes I've seen (even though the aspect doesn't show here, just the angularity).

Overall, though, it's kind of a poor example. Not a bad one, but certainly not a good one. (I'll probably need to include it in the next edition anyway, depending on how the aftermath assessment goes on its importance and severity.)

[Jim Eshelman]

This isn't a "worst ever" except in some media headlines. It's a biggest ever, and a strongest ever, but not a worst ever.

On the other hand, it's not going to be fun in Texas when this gets there. They're already flooded. Another 5 or 6" of rain is likely to be pretty bad.

Where's Jupiter Pluvius angular?

[Jim Eshelman]

Where's Jupiter Pluvius angular?

In the Canlunar, Jupiter and Mars slice up, due north-south, through the middle of Arizona (and parts north and south).

Related to this, in the Libsolar thread, I wrote: "ITEM 1. The Mars-Jupiter conjunction slices down western Montana, eastern Colorado, western Texas. My first thought on seeing this was torrential storms during the next nine months."

[Jim Eshelman]

Some final notes on this, now that the numbers are in.

Highest 10-minute sustained winds reached up to 200 mph, though I think this was before it struck land. This earned it the designation of "most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Western Hemisphere." Its winds were the highest velocity ever reliably observed, with the possibility that Haiyan was worse.

Damages are listed as in excess of $283.2 million (which is less than Galveston, Haiyan, Sandy, Camille, and Pam, but larger than Katrina, Labor Day, and Andrew.)

I can only find record of 1 death. Thousands were successfully evacuated from impacted areas.