What Are the Tracks of Hurricanes in the Pacific?

People are interested in hurricane tracks, the paths taken by hurricanes, for all different sorts of reasons. Perhaps they want to know when a storm is going to hit them or if they are in a region that is typically susceptible to these forces of nature.

Hurricanes tracks in the Pacific Ocean refer to the paths which the hurricanes typically take across this body of water. The tracks are categorized by region, and also vary on a yearly basis.

Unisys Weather has a complete database of all of the paths of hurricanes in the Pacific from the year 1949 until the present. Visiting the website will bring you to a comprehensive list of these tracks, along with visual aids to show you exactly where they were.

Information About the Hurricane Tracks

East Pacific

In this region, hurricane paths tend to gather near the western side of Central America. For example, Georgette, Darby, and a handful of others were concentrated in this area during 2010. However, that statement does not mean that all of the storms are so close to the land.

In the few years before that, storms were frequently found farther out at sea, such as:

• Maka, Two C, and Neki in 2009
• Omeka in 2010
• Kika in 2008

These storms often had paths that were quite close to Hawaii, as opposed to the mainland of America.

West Pacific

Quite a number of storms affected the west Pacific region during 2010. Malakas and Kompasu are only a smattering of the storms which came into the region. In fact, every single one of them were located near either the Chinese mainland or the islands right off of the shore. However, when we go back to 1996, we find that a number of storms had paths which were far away from the land and often happened in the north.

South Pacific

This region is the only one in the database where information is already available for 2011. The storms which have already made their way through this area have been named:

• Zelia
• Yasi
• Wilma
• Zaka
• Nia
• Atu
• Yania
• Anthony

Remember, different parts of the world have storms at various times of the year, since the weather is not the same all around the world at the same time.

Interestingly, looking at the data for this region for the year 2000 provides information more than worthy of note. In the entire year, they only had eight storms, which is the same number that the South Pacific has had by the end of March in 2011. Researchers can use this information to see why storm patterns increase so much over the course of a decade.

Looking at the 2000 chart for this region will also give you a glimpse of a hurricane taking a path over land, which does not appear on an abundance of these charts. Remember, hurricanes sometimes die out before they even touch land.

Considerations About Storm Tracking

Tracking a storm as its developing is an exciting pursuit for weather lovers and those with even just a little bit of curiosity. Your local weather channel will definitely be tracking the storms in your area, so flip on the television and watch where the path takes the storm. The National Hurricane Center provides online storm tracking information for storms over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.