Major Hurricane Heading for Mexico

Hi, gang. I'm my radar meteorologist Matt Cappucci. We're tracking major Hurricane Roslyn, which is en route to Mexico. As of early Saturday afternoon, Roslyn was a Category 4 hurricane with maximum winds around 130 mph. At the time, it was moving north-northwest at 8 mph. It was centered 150 miles or so southwest of Manzanillo. You can see on satellite it has pretty good symmetry to it. It looks to me, though, like it's trying to reorganize its eye just a little bit. Notice how the eye wobbles and then starts to get a little bit obscured towards the middle at the end. Roslyn rapidly intensified over the past couple days. On Thursday, Roslyn became a named storm for the first time. It only became a hurricane on Friday night at 11 pm, and six hours later was a Category 3. Now it's a Category 4. Rapid intensification means an uptick of at least 35 mph or more in the maximum sustained winds at the core of a storm in 24 hours or fewer. We know there's an emerging link between rapid intensification and human-induced climate change. Roslyn will begin to curve north and then northeast ahead of a short wave, or pocket of high-altitude cold air, low pressure, and spin that's right now near the Baja Peninsula. That will take it into the west coast of Mexico sometime Sunday. By then, it will be gradually weakening, but it could still be near or at major hurricane strength as it impacts Las Islas Marias. It will be rapidly weakening as it approaches mainland Mexico. The states of Jalisco and Nayarit will be most impacted. Hurricane warnings are in effect from Playa Perula to El Roble. Landfall will occur near the mouth of the Rio Grande de Santiago near Boca del Cedero. Winds gusting around 100 mph may be possible near there, with some dangerous surge and high waves to the south. Apropos of surge, the continental shelf doesn't slope as gradually there as in the Gulf of Mexico, so it won't be quite as easy to push water against the coastline. That means surge won't be quite as bad, but it could still be pretty bad. Roslyn could be the most impactful storm where it strikes since Quena in 2002, which made landfall as a Category 4 in almost exactly the same spot. We'll be watching this around the clock.