Hurricane Vance Expected to Become 11th Major Eastern Pacific Hurricane

Vance became a Category 1 hurricane early Friday, with more strengthening expected as the weekend progresses. Here is what forecasters are predicting about the latest storm to roam the busy Eastern Pacific this season.

Hurricane Vance Forms on Friday, Forecast to Become Major Storm

Hurricane Vance is forecast to evolve into the 11th major storm in the Eastern Pacific by the time the weekend is over. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) defines major hurricanes as storms that are Category 3 or higher.

As of late Friday, Vance was packing maximum sustained winds of 110 mph as it moved to the north-northwest. Vance's future path is difficult to determine, with forecasting tools coming in all over the map, literally. While some tracks take the worst of the storm to sea, other models show Vance making a direct strike on Mexico. What the models are certain of is that Vance will continue to intensify in the days ahead.

What is now Vance spent the first part of the week spinning through the Pacific as a robust tropical rainstorm. The system began to show signs of defined tropical characteristics on Wednesday, becoming a tropical storm just four hours after becoming a tropical depression.

The NHC forecasts that Vance will peak as a Category 3 storm as it moves over the warm waters of the Eastern Pacific. There is a good chance that Vance will make a turn toward the northeast, putting the west-central coast of Mexico in the direct line of fire. Even if the storm remains offshore, this part of the Mexican coastline will be under the threat of overwash and coastal flooding.

Gusty winds and heavy rain from Vance's outer bands are likely to impact a large portion of Guerrero, Michoacán, Colima, and Jalisco states. Should Vance remain out to sea, winds will peak at speeds between 40 and 60 mph along the west-central Mexico coast. The highest winds are likely to hit this region on Tuesday through Thursday.

The forecast is calling for widespread rain totals of 1 to 2 inches for the coastal portions of Guerrero and up through western Jalisco. More localized totals of 2 to 4 inches are in the forecast for a zone from coastal Michoacán through eastern Jalisco.

All of these rain predictions and winds will be higher if Vance takes a faster turn toward the coastline of Mexico. This scenario would translate to winds over 100 mph, several inches to a foot of rain, and the likelihood of flash flooding, mudslides, and life-threatening storm surge.

Vance will begin to enter cooler water by the middle of next week. This will inevitably cause the storm to weaken.

The U.S. could also see some of Vance's impacts if some of the rain bands break away from the core of the storm and track to the northeast. This path would take the tropical moisture into portions of the south-central U.S., enhancing the rain showers and thunderstorms expected for this part of the country.

It has been a historic year for the eastern and central zones of the Pacific. Vance is the 23rd named storm to ignite in this basin. The accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) from all of these storms is now a record-breaking 335. This metric looks at both the storms' intensity and their duration.