The 1978 season

Hurricane Aletta (1978)

Hurricane Aletta reached Category 1 in the Eastern Pacific between May 30, 1978 and June 1, 1978, and made landfall.

Track and intensity

The whole track of Hurricane Aletta, colored by strength, with the other storms of the 1978 season in the same basin behind it, and its wind and pressure hour by hour. Every fix is in the track table below.

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The storm

Basin
Eastern Pacific
Dates
May 30, 1978 to June 1, 1978
Peak strength
Category 1, 65 kt (75 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
1.4
Fastest the center moved
8 kt (9 mph)
Identifier
EP011978

Deaths and damage

No source this site reads publishes a machine-readable casualty or damage figure for a storm of this era. The National Hurricane Center’s season tables begin in 1995 and carry deaths and damage only from 2005 in the Atlantic and 2020 in both basins; the US Storm Events record begins in 1996.

Track

Time (UTC)PositionWindPressureStatus
May 30, 12:0015.0N 100.0W35 ktTropical storm
May 30, 18:0015.6N 100.5W40 ktTropical storm
May 31, 00:0016.2N 101.0W65 ktHurricane
May 31, 06:0016.8N 101.6W50 ktTropical storm
May 31, 12:0017.5N 102.0W45 ktTropical storm
May 31, 18:0018.0N 102.1W45 ktTropical storm
Jun 1, 00:0018.6N 102.5W25 ktExtratropical
Jun 1, 06:0019.0N 102.8W25 ktExtratropical

Other Eastern Pacific storms of 1978

What this means

A best track is the record a warning agency settles on after the storm, not what it said at the time: position, maximum sustained wind and central pressure every six hours, revised against every observation that came in later. Category is the Saffir-Simpson scale, which runs from Category 1 at 64 kt to Category 5 at 137 kt and reads wind only, so it says nothing about surge or rain. Accumulated cyclone energy adds up the square of the wind through the storm's life, so it counts strength and duration together.

Sources

Storm history from NOAA NCEI’s International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS), which merges the official best track of every warning agency. Live storms, cones, watches and warnings from the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Archived radar from NOAA’s Level II archive.

The National Hurricane Center has published no tropical cyclone report for this storm.