The initial depression formed offshore the coast of southern Cuba on September 28. The cyclone moved west and west-northwest, strengthening into a tropical storm soon after entering the Gulf of Mexico, and a hurricane during the night of the 29th. On October 1st, the hurricane slowly turned north and weakened as it interacted with a nearby frontal zone and cooler waters across the northern Gulf of Mexico. Hilda made landfall on St. Mary parish on the 3rd as a category 3 hurricane. Turning eastward after landfall,the cyclone continued weakening and became an extratropical cyclone on the 4th which ultimately moved eastward into the subtropical Atlantic. Below is the track of this cyclone provided by the National Hurricane Center. The graphics below show the storm total rainfall for Hilda. The maximum across the Lower Mississippi Valley fell just to the left of its track. The precipitation through the East fell along a frontal boundary draping over the northeast side of Hilda.

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The initial disturbance which led to this cyclone’s development moved off the coast of Africa on October 5th.The system moved westward without note until the 9th when the convective system began to detach from the Intertropical Convergence Zone. By the afternoon of the 10th, the system became a tropical depression, the 17th of the season. Late that night the system became a tropical storm named Joan. Moving westward, the cyclone began to weaken as it approached the Windward Islands. The cyclone moved across Grenada, and slowly developed as it grazed the coast of South America, the first to track so far south since 1971. The cyclone moved across Curacao, the Paraguana peninsula of Venezuela, and the Guajira peninsula of Columbia. After
clearing the Columbian peninsula, Joan strengthened into a hurricane. The cyclone transcribed a loop about 130 miles north of Panama City, Panama on the 20th. Tropical Depression #18 may have helped contribute to this motion.

Strengthening resumed after the loop, and Joan became a category 4 hurricane to the east of Bluefields,Nicaragua. Moving acorss Nicaragua on the 22nd and early on the 23rd, the cyclone remained well-organized and at tropical storm strength as it emerged into the eastern Pacific ocean. The system was named Miriam upon entering the Pacific, and moved just offshore El Salvador and southern Guatemala before upper level shear weakened the tropical storm with the system dissipating as a tropical cyclone about 300 miles south of Acapulco on the 28th. Below is the track of this cyclone, provided by the National Hurricane Center.

The graphics below show the storm total rainfall for Joan/Miriam. Note the maxima over the Yucatan Peninsula and extreme southeast Mexico, which occurred under inflow bands to the northeast of the cyclone. Rainfall data was provided by the Comision Nacional del Agua, the parent agency of Mexico’s National Weather Service.

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