Hurricane Gert
Hurricane Gert was a large and deadly tropical cyclone that caused extensive flooding and mudslides throughout Central America and Mexico in September 1993. The seventh named storm and third hurricane of the annual hurricane season, Gert originated as a tropical depression from a tropical wave over the southwestern Caribbean Sea on September 14. The next day, the cyclone briefly attained tropical storm strength before moving ashore in Nicaragua and proceeding through Honduras. It reorganized into a tropical storm over the Gulf of Honduras on September 17, but weakened back to a depression upon crossing the Yucatán Peninsula. Once over the warm waters of the Bay of Campeche, Gert quickly strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane by September 20. The hurricane made a final landfall on the Gulf Coast of Mexico near Tuxpan, Veracruz, with peak winds of. The rugged terrain disrupted the cyclone's structure; Gert entered the Pacific Ocean as a depression near the state of Nayarit on September 21, where it briefly redeveloped a few strong thunderstorms before dissipating at sea five days later.
Gert's broad wind circulation produced widespread and heavy rainfall across Central America through September 15–17. Combined with saturated soil following Tropical Storm Bret's passage a month earlier, the rain triggered widespread floods and mudslides that isolated thousands of people across numerous communities. In Costa Rica, blustery weather destroyed a national park and led to significant losses in the agricultural and tourism sectors. Much of the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua and Honduras endured overflowing rivers, engulfing cities, villages, and crops with mud and water. Gert's winds were at their strongest upon landfall in Mexico, yet the worst effects in the country were also due to freshwater flooding after an extreme rainfall event in the Huasteca region resulted in water accumulations as high as. An increasing number of major rivers burst their banks over a period of several days, fully submerging extensive areas of land around the Pánuco basin. Tens of thousands of residents were forced to evacuate as raging floodwaters demolished scores of structures in what was described as the region's worst disaster in 40 years.
In Gert's wake, the road networks across the affected countries remained severely disrupted for extended periods of time, hampering rescue missions and relief efforts in badly flooded regions. National governments and emergency workers opened shelters and distributed food for the thousands that had lost their homes and sources of income in the storm. Throughout Central America and Mexico, Gert claimed the lives of 116 people and left 16 others missing. The disaster left swaths of private property, infrastructure, and farmland in complete ruins, amounting to damage costs of more than $170 million. Despite the excessive damage and catastrophic loss of life caused by the storm, the name Gert was not retired following the season, and was used again in the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season.
Meteorological history
Hurricane Gert had a complex lifespan as a large and slow-moving tropical cyclone, repeatedly interacting with nearby landmasses and other atmospheric systems. Its genesis was traced to a tropical wave—an area of low pressure oriented north to south—that moved off the African coast to the south of Dakar on September 5, 1993. The wave tracked westward across the tropical Atlantic at a rapid pace and relatively low latitudes, where its interaction with the Intertropical Convergence Zone fostered the formation of convection. On its approach to the Caribbean, the system developed a weak low-pressure center at sea level, which crossed Trinidad on September 11. Although most of the cloud field brushed over the northern coast of South America, the system survived its contact with land and emerged over the southwestern Caribbean Sea on September 13. There, owing to favorable tropospheric conditions aloft, the wave showed signs of cyclonic development, as its convection thickened into curved, well-defined bands. Given these structural changes alongside a defined surface circulation, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center classified the system as a tropical depression at 1800 UTC on September 14, when it was located north of the Atlantic coast of Panama.From its inception onwards, the depression exhibited a rather large wind field on satellite images and radiosonde data. Its broad cloud pattern gradually coalesced, and by 0900 UTC on September 15, the NHC had determined it sufficiently strong to be upgraded to Tropical Storm Gert. The center of the storm proceeded west-northwestward, moving ashore near Bluefields, Nicaragua, with winds of at 1800 UTC. Gert's interaction with land impeded additional strengthening; the storm weakened back to a tropical depression just six hours after its landfall. While the storm's center remained land-bound for nearly two days, parts of its large circulation abutted the adjacent Caribbean and Pacific waters to draw in moisture and heat. As such, Gert retained its status as a tropical cyclone on its journey northwestward across the terrains of Nicaragua and Honduras. In doing so, the storm consistently defied the NHC's forecasts for its imminent dissipation.
On September 17, Gert finally exited the coast, accessed the waters of the Gulf of Honduras and restrengthened to a tropical storm. Its duration over water—and with that any opportunity for additional strengthening—was curtailed by a mid- to upper-level trough over the eastern Gulf of Mexico; it turned the storm to the north-northwest and brought it over the coast of Belize the next day. Inland, Gert began to interact with a high-pressure ridge to its northwest, which nudged the storm slightly more to the west. After crossing the Yucatán Peninsula and winding down over land, Gert entered the Bay of Campeche offshore Champotón as a tropical depression late on September 18. The open tropical waters, combined with light wind shear aloft, allowed the storm's convection to deepen and reconsolidate. At 0600 UTC the next day, Gert once more restrengthened into a tropical storm. The storm veered toward the west and slowed slightly in response to a shortwave trough to its north, granting it more time to mature over water. On September 20, data from a United States Air Force aircraft indicated that Gert had become a hurricane with maximum winds of. Within hours, it attained its peak intensity as a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of and a minimum pressure of 970 mbar.
At about 2100 UTC on September 20, Gert made its final landfall at peak intensity on the coast of Mexico, just north of Tuxpan, Veracruz. The hurricane accelerated and weakened quickly over the rugged mountains of the Sierra Madre Oriental, deteriorating into a tropical depression by September 21. Despite its declining strength, the large circulation again remained intact as it crossed the country. Gert entered the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Nayarit later that day, where the NHC reclassified it as Tropical Depression Fourteen-E. What remained of the deep convection waxed and waned in intensity; satellite estimates show the depression may have briefly regained tropical storm strength on September 22. It proceeded on a west to west-northwestward track with sparse thunderstorms for two days. Once the last of this convection diminished, the shallow cyclone was swept up by low-level flow. Steered farther and farther southwest, the depression encountered increasingly cool ocean temperatures. With any chance at redevelopment thwarted, the system dissipated at sea on September 26.
Preparations
After confirming the development of a tropical depression, authorities in Costa Rica issued a green alert for coastal regions on September 14. The following day, a tropical storm warning was issued for the Atlantic coast of the country. National television and radio stations broadcast warning messages to the public, and emergency crews were dispatched in case conditions were to warrant intervention. This helped with the effective and timely clearing of hospitals, as well as the evacuation of residents in high-risk zones. A tropical storm warning was posted for the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua on September 15, extending south from Puerto Cabezas to the adjacent islands. In Honduras, early storm warnings allowed several hundred residents to evacuate well ahead of Gert's arrival. Once it became evident that the storm would strike the Yucatán Peninsula, coastal areas from Belize northward to Cozumel, Mexico, were placed under a tropical storm warning on September 17 until Gert's landfall the next day.While Gert was still located over the peninsula, the government of Mexico issued a tropical storm watch for the Gulf Coast from the city of Veracruz northward to Soto la Marina, Tamaulipas. By September 18, it was upgraded to a tropical storm warning and extended southward to Minatitlán, although the initial watch area was placed under a hurricane watch after Gert showed signs of strengthening. The next day, the tropical storm watch from Soto La Marina to Nautla was upgraded to a hurricane warning as it became clearer where Gert would make landfall. Prior to impact, several ports along the Gulf Coast halted their operations, and people living in risk zones were evacuated. All warnings and watches were discontinued after the hurricane moved inland.