This is a bit late in the year for an Atlantic Hurricane. The season normally runs from June 1st through November 30th, but that includes a bit of buffer time.
Otto is a tropical storm that will turn into a hurricane on Wednesday, probably, and make landfal near the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Expect coastal flooding as well as serious inland flooding. The storm will arrive in the Pacific on Friday as a tropical depression.
Then, we'll have to see if it turns into something in the Eastern Pacific basin.
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It is interesting that a hurricane could maybe turn into something in the Pacific.
Have other hurricanes turned into typhoons before? Or a cyclone?
Just wondering.
Never mind - I looked it up:
http://www.livescience.com/47247-how-hurricane-becomes-super-typhoon.ht…
It looks like this has happened before.
In the Eastern Pacific they are still called Hurricanes.
But yes, it is not that uncommon for an Atlantic tropical storm of some level to provide the seed for a Pacific named tropical storm. Happens about every five years.
Ten named storms have been crossovers, the most recent was Hermine, a tropical storm that was almost a hurricane, which made the odd move of going from Pacific to Atlantic. Almost all the rest have been Atlantic to Pacific. The last Atlantic to Pacific crossover was Hurricane Cesar (Atlantic) which turned into Hurricane Douglas in the Pacific. That was in the late 90s, and it was a killer storm, causing a lot of damage.
Now I wonder if one storm has ever been all three types?
A cyclone, a hurricane and a typhoon (no particular order).
My googling couldn't find the answer to this question.
I am 99.9999 percent sure that has not ever happened.
In order to be a hurricane, typhoon, and cyclone (and it would be in that order), it would have to form in the Central or Eastern Pacific (east of 180 degrees longitude), proceed into the Western Pacific, then cross the Malay Peninsula into the Bay of Bengal. I'm not aware of any tropical cyclone that has done the last; it would be rare in part because the peninsula is so far south (even further south than where Hurricane Otto is), though I would not claim it's impossible.
I know of at least one storm, John, which formed in the Central Pacific as a hurricane, became a typhoon when it crossed the International Date Line, and became a hurricane again after crossing the International Date Line a second time after recurving. That's the storm which holds the record for longest observed hurricane track. I doubt that a hurricane that did this could remain far enough south to cross the Malay Peninsula; recurvature before it reaches the Philippines/Taiwan/Japan is more likely.