The 1981 season

Tropical Storm Irwin (1981)

Tropical Storm Irwin peaked at 45 kt in the Eastern Pacific between August 27, 1981 and August 31, 1981, and made landfall.

Track and intensity

The whole track of Tropical Storm Irwin, colored by strength, with the other storms of the 1981 season in the same basin behind it, and its wind and pressure hour by hour. Every fix is in the track table below.

Open the live map with storms, cones and warnings

The storm

Basin
Eastern Pacific
Dates
August 27, 1981 to August 31, 1981
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 45 kt (52 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.8
Fastest the center moved
16 kt (18 mph)
Identifier
EP091981

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
Aug 27, 18:0016.5N 103.5W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 00:0017.2N 103.9W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 06:0017.7N 104.4W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 12:0018.4N 104.9W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 28, 18:0019.1N 105.5W45 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 00:0019.8N 106.1W45 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 06:0020.5N 106.7W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 12:0021.3N 107.2W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 18:0022.0N 107.7W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 30, 00:0022.5N 108.5W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 30, 06:0023.1N 109.2W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 30, 12:0023.5N 110.1W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 30, 18:0023.9N 110.0W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 31, 00:0024.0N 112.0W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 31, 06:0024.2N 113.0W20 ktTropical depression

Other Eastern Pacific storms of 1981

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.