TORONTO – Hurricane Amanda — which became the strongest May hurricane on record in the eastern Pacific basin during the satellite era — has lost some of her punch, but she continues to go strong.
READ MORE: U.S. forecasters to predict slow hurricane season
On Sunday, Hurricane Amanda, the first hurricane of the Pacific season, reached maximum sustained wind speeds of 250 km/h. That placed it as a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale (the scale goes from category 1 to category 5). Amanda, located about 1,000 km southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, was just two kilometres an hour below a category 5 storm which has maximum sustained winds of 252 km/h and higher.
Had it reached Category 5 status, it would have become the earliest category 5 storm on record.
Instead, Amanda weakened.
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As of Tuesday afternoon, Amanda had maximum sustained wind speeds of 165 km/h, making it a category 2 hurricane. The National Hurricane Center expects the hurricane to weaken further as it continues to track northeast over the next two days.
Both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Canadian Hurricane Centre is forecasting fewer hurricanes this season. However, it is still unknown whether or not we will experience an El Niño which could influence the hurricane season, mainly suppressing their development.
The Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15 to November 30. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30.
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