Puerto Vallarta's Natural Hurricane Barrier

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Puerto Vallarta is in the tropics, which means tropical storms and even hurricanes are normal occurrences throughout rainy season. Luckily for visitors to the city, Puerto Vallarta has a couple of natural barriers which prevent storms from entering the city. The predominant wind pattern is from the SW, which causes approaching weather patterns to be weakened over Cabo Corrientes. In addition, the Bay of Banderas acts as a natural buffer, keeping the storms out to sea instead of entering the city. As a result, Puerto Vallarta has the enviable position of being virtually hurricane-free all year round.

Past Hurricanes

October 2016 - Category 5 Hurricane Patricia grew from a tropical storm to the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in only 30 hours. She packed sustained winds of 200 mph (320 km/hr) with gusts recorded up to 250 mph (400 km/hr) as she prepared to make landfall near Puerto Vallarta. Tourists and residents were evacuated by the tens of thousands in the hours before the storm, over 500 flights were cancelled, and residents prepared for the kind of catastrophic damage wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013. She was so strong, she had some experts considering raising the Category scale where she would rank as an incomprehensible Category 7 Hurricane.

Mercifully, Patricia made landfall about halfway between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, along the sparsely populated Costa Alegre near Cuixmala, about 180 miles (290 km) south of Puerto Vallarta. Although her sustained winds were still a devastating Category 5 with 165 mph (265 km/hr) at landfall (trailing only 195 mph Hainan in recorded history), the hurricane force winds stretched only 35 miles from her center and metropolitan areas of Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo were spared the brunt of her wrath, experiencing only rain and little wind with little or no damage. In an area of 8 million people, it was still bad, particularly for the villages along Costa Alegre, but could have been so much worse.

June 2016 - Hurricane Blanca became the earliest Category 4 storm on record as it neared Puerto Vallarta, thankfully dropping to a Category 2 and passing hundreds of miles offshore. Puerto Vallarta experienced some surf but otherwise was largely unaffected. There was no disturbance to flights or touristic activity save for a delay in beach and boating activities.