Hurricane Trudy is the Latest in an Unusual Pacific Hurricane Season

The Pacific Ocean has been having a busy hurricane season, with Trudy this week becoming the latest storm to roll off what seems to be an endless conveyor belt of tropical cyclones across the region. Closest to North America, meteorologists divide the Pacific into two regions, central and eastern, and Trudy is the 21st named storm to form between them this year. It is forecast to move toward Mexico’s western coast this week, and like several of its predecessors, Hurricane Trudy is expected to rapidly intensify, possibly becoming as strong as a Category 4 storm along the way. Whether it makes landfall remained uncertain on Thursday. Regardless, the Pacific’s relentless run of storms has already made this a remarkable year. Here’s how unusual the season has been so far. It’s had more of the strongest hurricanes. Meteorologists call hurricanes that reach Category 3 or above “major.” If Trudy were to reach that intensity — and forecasters expect that it will — it would be the 10th major hurricane in the Pacific this year. In a typical season, only about four or five Pacific hurricanes get that strong, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . The record in the Pacific is 11, said Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist in the department of atmospheric science at Colorado State University. It was set in 2015, which, like this year, was influenced by a strong El Niño. One of the calling cards of El Niño is a more active hurricane season in the Pacific, where the weather pattern heats up the ocean and provides fuel for more storms, and a comparatively quiet one in the Atlantic. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .