The seventeenth cyclone of the East Pacific Hurricane Season formed from a tropical disturbance south
of the Gulf of Tehuantepec on September 23rd. Steered by a warm core ridge over central Mexico and
a stationary closed cyclone near the 125th meridian offshore California, Octave tracked on a parabolic
track around western Mexico, while experiencing some vertical wind shear. Octave finally gained
tropical storm strength by the afternoon of the 28th while located near 13.5N 121.7W...well west of
Mexico. By the afternoon of the 30th, the tropical storm was weakening as it moved over cooler
waters and was being sheared by the upper cyclone offshore California. Storm total rainfall for this
system was confined to Northwest Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico. The bulk of the rainfall
over California was mainly due to the upper cyclone near the 125th meridian. The graphics below show
the storm total rainfall for Octave, which used data from the United States archived at the National
Climatic Data Center and data from Mexico retrieved from the Comision Nacional del Agua, the
parent agency of Mexico's national weather service.
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