Twin belts encircle the Earth's two tropic zones (Cancer and Capricorn) between fifteen degrees and thirty-degree latitudes. It is there that the world's hurricanes form. North of the equator storms move East to West and south of the equator, they do just the opposite. Because of (or despite) the planet's rotation, hurricanes revolve counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

Hurricane dynamics feed on ocean surface water that has been solar heated to eighty degrees Fahrenheit or warmer. If you should look at summer ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, you will find eighty-degree water as far north as the Carolinas, and sometimes more Northerly than that. The Atlantic Ocean is warm enough to support hurricanes, as is the Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. On the Pacific side, a vigorous Japan current flows Southward along the coast of North America, bringing frigid Arctic water to a point very near to Guerrero Negro Baja California (Where a large hook like projection of land sticks out into the Ocean). While an Atlantic hurricane occasionally travels up the Atlantic seaboard to the New England states, Pacific hurricanes do not venture North of twenty-eight degrees latitude---cold water and cool air mass rapidly suck the life (heat) out of the formation and heavy precipitation will expend most of a Pacific hurricane's energy. Sometimes these Pacific hurricanes will take a sudden right-hand hook and move Eastward across the sixty mile wide landmass of the Baja peninsula, take a fast gulp of eighty-degree Gulf of California water energy and then continue North by Northeast and then precipitate over Arizona. Most of Arizona's moisture is monsoonal, meaning summer rains originating in the South.

Atlantic hurricanes form from huge vigorous thunderstorms that spin off of equatorial Africa. The mechanism needed to turn a large thunderstorm into a raging hurricane is complex but unfortunately not rare. After a hurricane forms in the Eastern Atlantic, it's path is generally Westward and Northward. Even today's megaladon giant computers and chaos theory programs cannot pinpoint a hurricane's path beyond a day or so. Some Atlantic hurricanes march westward and impact Yucatan Mexico or even Honduras, and Belize. Others enter the Gulf of Mexico and strike Texas, Louisiana, or Alabama, or like now, 2004, a cumulative series of strikes against one area like Florida, render the weather phenomenon akin to a diabolical entity.

When a particularly potent Tropical Storm roars across Mexico's narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec it doesn't have to lift up because the isthmus is mostly lowland. By remaining near sea level the storm isn't cooled---precipitation is light and the storm roars right out into the very warm water of the Pacific Ocean. Around eighty miles offshore ciclonic winds can form and the Tropical Storm may (sometimes once again) become a hurricane. From June until about August, most Pacific hurricanes take a more Westward rather than Northward bent. Then from around mid-August to the end of hurricane season (November 1) the storms may steer Northward impacting an area generally from Puerto Vallarta northward to Guerrero Negro, and Los Mochis. Hurricanes seldom act the way they should, so this information must be taken with a grain of salt.

June first to November first is the "official hurricane season" for the Western Hemisphere, which includes Central America, Mexico, and the United States of America (plus a heavy sprinkling of islands in the Atlantic and Caribbean). Although summer historically is the "off" tourist season for RV travel in Mexico, at any given moment in these months there are hundreds of RV'ers there, in potential hurricane strike zones.

Hurricanes are officially measured by the "Category" scale which categorizes the storms from F1 for the mildest ones that have barely made wind speed to seventy MPH, to F5 for winds in excess of two hundred miles per hour. Yet the category designation is wildly incomplete—the vast hurricane vortex itself is not uniform, if you should peer at a Doppler radar image of a hurricane you will see splots, smears, and wedge shapes indicating a storm or storms within a storm. Tornadoes and waterspouts can form which will add to the storm's destruction.

AVOID SUMMER TRAVEL?

I happen to love Mexico in the summer, and while I know that hurricanes can happen, I don't let it discourage me from enjoying the Yucatan peninsula or Baja California peninsula. Indeed I have endured a total of five hurricanes ranging from the legendary Hurricane Gilbert(o) in 1989, to Hurricane Ignacio in 2003. During September of 1995, Hurricane Henriette visited Cabo San Lucas, Baja California and dead-centered the region enough to make the passage of the eye very pronounced. While hurricane experiences in general cannot rank right up there with Para-Sailing, and White Water Rafting, they have taught me how to endure the storms with the best chance for the least amount of injury and damage.

The most important point: If you can take refuge in a sturdy concrete building, don't hesitate to do so. This is especially true if you can hide your rig "around back" out of the wind.

Truly dangerous storms are rated category 3, 4, and 5. A true category 5 storm is a major threat to life and property. The central eye air pressure is so low, that seawater located within the eye of the storm actually forms a bulge—sometimes up to twenty feet in height. Top that with another twenty or thirty feet in raging waves, and you have the ingredients needed to sweep everything clean as a whistle for a distance of a mile or more inland. Even bank vaults have been breached in this kind of fury. Winds of two hundred miles per hour can dislodge railroad locomotives from the tracks, so an RV'er must avoid the possibility of having such force attack their domicile. Most RV's can withstand one hundred twenty mile per hour wind if the rig has been ballasted with filled water tanks and placed endwise to the wind. Trailers and 5th wheels should be attached to the tow rig.

The first point should be to drive as far from the water as you can get. In the Yucatan, I ended up in Escarcega, Campeche. Although not hundreds of miles from any ocean, it was far enough inland to force Category 5 Hurricane Gilberto to dissipate two hundred mile per hour winds down to less than a hundred and thirty. Baja California presents a special challenge because the peninsula itself is only sixty miles wide in spots. In that case, aim for the furthest point where the hurricane first hits the coast while staying at least two miles away from the sea on the opposite coast.

THE BATTLE PLAN

The first thing to keep in mind is that you cannot start preparing for a hurricane two hours before it hits. When I visit Yucatan in summer for instance, one of the first things that I will accomplish is setting up a link of communications that allows me to check storms as they march across the Atlantic. In the "Old Days" this might have meant that I checked with the front desk of a major hotel to see if they had gotten a FAX warning them of an approaching storm. Today, connection to the Internet means "real-time" information and you can bet that fellow travelers will be sounding the alarm at full voice the moment that a storm appears to threaten. A person would have to be really out in the boonies with no contacts (even locals) to get jumped by a hurricane. Much to my astonishment, two hours after I awoke to a blood red sunrise, I had journeyed to the far end of a long beach, helped a fellow RV'er erect a massive satellite dish, watched the "Tropical Weather Update" on a Weather Station, disassembled the dish, raced back to camp and loaded the bus for travel (shovel & run), with my pickup hitched on behind.

I keep my fuel tanks, topped off, and I always have a week's worth of Bomb Shelter grade foodstuffs on hand to tide me over. I figure two gallons per day per person of drinking water will be plenty, because domestic fresh water can be boiled and used for bathing. The storm is going to leave a massive amount of standing water so going without domestic water shouldn't be of concern. RV'ers are notorious for having lots of flashlights, matches, and other gizmos deemed necessary in a storm. If you should end up plugged into public power somewhere (shore power), be prepared to unplug it just as soon as the first raindrops hit. Toppling power poles and shorting power lines will raise havoc with supply voltage. I saw line voltage spike to two hundred and sixty volts on a one twenty line during the beginnings of Hurricane Henriette. Lucky for me that only my meter was connected.

Extinguish flames in the refrigerator and hot water heater, and then spin the hand valves closed on the LPG tanks. The last thing you need to see are flames inside your rig while a howling deluge of wind and rain rage outside.

Be prepared to quickly reorient your rig into or away from the wind. Once the wind hits it will remain from that direction unless the eye passes over in which case the wind will come from the opposite direction.

Stow or tie down anything sharp or heavy inside your rig. In the remote chance that you end up on your side, you don't want to become cold cocked by a friendly appearing cast iron Dutch oven.

Experience has taught me that an RV is going to start bobbing and bouncing on its springs once the wind hits a hundred miles an hour. It feels much like doing sixty-five on the Interstate. If one end of the rig or the other has a large expanse of glass, it would be prudent to abandon that room if the wind is upon the glass. Unless you're unlucky enough to be caught in a category four or five storm, glass breakage from the wind alone shouldn't be of concern.

Are we having fun yet? Right in the middle of a storm I start reminding myself of how fortunate I am in relation to locals. They are huddled usually in a bedroom, soaked to the skin because half the roof has been carried away. I have lights while they cannot seem to get a match to light long enough to flame a candle. Now is the time to start applying bug dope.

Whatever you do, abandon all thought of stepping into the gale to inspect "that peculiar crashing noise". Unfortunates have had an opened door torn off and lost forever in the middle of a hurricane. Slightly subsonic grade wind can tumble and carry away even a circus acrobat; one could count themselves lucky to have broken only a handful of bones.

After the storm give the ground three hours to drain before you try moving your rig. Saturated soil acts like quicksand. I have seen Four Wheel Drive pickups sink instantly to the frame when their owner tried to move them immediately after a storm.

Don't go sightseeing. Mexico is the land of "Just Get By" highway and street engineering. Asphalt could be undercut by ill-drained currents of floodwater, which may make you suddenly part of the problem.

The Mexican Army will circulate through storm wracked areas determining if someone needs first aid, and sometimes they pass out bags of tortilla flour, beans, and rice. I always accept these pass-outs with a hearty "Muchas Gracias". It will be pretty easy to find someone less fortunate in the days ahead that could really use this stuff after the Army leaves.

There is a surprising quantity of heavy-equipment in Mexico today and it won't be long before an impromptu mix of D-8 bulldozers and Motor Graders opens main highways for emergency travel. Hurricane Mitch in '06 tore the caribbean corridor in Quintana Roo to shreds. Four days later no less than "hundreds" of transmission line repair trucks and thousands of employees were erecting an all-new electrical grid. This rivals the response of even the most sophisticated power companies north of the border.

Silver Lining Department: Massive amounts of rainfall are considered normal and even necessary in this part of the world. After I left Escarcega, I traveled to the Mayan ruins of Palenque. For a week afterward a profusion of orchids garlanded the jungle, bright violet and crimson flowers bloomed, and for Mother Nature anyway, everything seemed right with the world.

Note: As an amateur meteorologist I am not qualified to give "Life And Death" advice and prognostication information contrary to what NOAA, and the National Weather Service would advise. But there is little or no advice or information about weathering a hurricane in an RV, never mind doing so South of the border.

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