Cruisers, Locals Cleaning Up

As the reports trickle in, it appears that the weather bomb that exploded over Central Mexico on Tuesday night wasn’t limited to Banderas Bay. 

"This storm hammered a lot more than P.V.," said expat David Eidell. "I’m getting reports of 10-inch 24-hr rainfall totals from Barra de Navidad, and similar figures from Z-town. Many overnight potholes, and much standing water on Mex 200, the coast highway. There were many rockfalls and very hazardous driving. Acapulco is also similarly affected. Elders say the event hasn’t been seen here in 30 years. The good news is that the rain is easing a severe drought. The bad is that many Mexicans have died already and tens of thousands are homeless. Most of the city of Tuxpan, Michoacan, is under water and the feds have declared an emergency for the state of Michoacan."

"It was crazy down here too," said Sylvia Fox, formerly of the Sacramento-based Mapleleaf 48 Sabbatical. "We’re in Arroyo Seco, a surf beach just north of Tenacatita Bay. We talked to people in the anchorage who moved over in front of La Manzanilla until the winds changed and by first light they’d moved again. I’ve never seen a storm like this one — tons of sheet lightning, big bolts of lightning, rolling thunder, and rain, rain, rain. La Manzanilla had almost four inches of rain in 24 hours. The mosquitoes will hatch when the rain stops; did you know there’s an epidemic of dengue fever in Jalisco this year?"

"Imagine my surprise yesterday morning," said Corby White of the PV-based Yorktown 35 Laniack which ended up high and dry, but undamaged. "We were at home in P.V. when the blow came through but didn’t really think that much about it. We had what we thought was a good mooring. We’re still a bit frazzled, but no harm, no foul. The net this morning was interesting — lots of lost and found."

"Winds reached hurricane-force, clocked at up to 75 knots, off Playa Punta Mita Tuesday night," said Punta Mita resident Jim Casey. "At about 9:30 p.m., the heavens let loose a deluge and the Playa became blind chaos. It was frightening to see the sailboats jumping about like Mexican beans in the Punta Mita anchorage. Here in the ‘safety’ of the beach condos, I watched as my 8-ft teak table, weighted down with seven football-sized chunks of granite, flew over the rail and hurled five stories down to splinter on concrete. A neighbor’s sliding glass doors exploded off the tracks and smacked her in the face. Floors flooded, as there was no stopping the virtual fire hose coming from the ocean. The tropical phenomenon was impossible to witness from outside, as lightning constantly flashed nearby, roof tiles flew around, and the sideways rain literally knocked your body backwards. According to the only source known to have predicted the event, Don Anderson of Summer Passage, yesterday there was a very narrow low-pressure trough running all the way from Mazatlan to Acapulco. Bands of rain clouds formed, and the steep pressure gradient air exchanges made life both wet and wild. Hard to tell if this is related to El Niño, generally rising ocean temperatures and water levels, or the price of beans in Chile."

Do you have any photos or reports from the frontlines of theis storm? Please send them here.