Hurricane Otis has weakened to a Category 4 storm but is still delivering life-threatening conditions to southern Mexico | CNN 1st Cat 5 at landfall ever recorded in the eastern Pacific. Went from a tropical storm to this monster in less than 24 hours. Still a Cat 4 two hours after landfall. I feel bad for Acapulco.
Yeah, the models are more reliable with respect to track than intensity. I haven't gone back to look at the data or anything, but definitely felt yesterday like the rapid intensification caught everybody off guard.
Water was a very hot 31C to 32C near the coast. The models incorporate that but still missed the forecast.