Hurricanes and the Making of Caribbean History
The 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane1899 San Ciriaco hurricane hit Puerto Rico, whose economy relied on coffee. The crop had already been facing problems with a decrease in prices and competing countries, but the hurricane wiped out any chance of rebounding from the losses of the previous years. The winds stripped the berries from the trees and the coffee exports of 1899 were only 10 percent of the average export. The losses amounted to 12 million dollars in revenue from 1899 to 1901. This left a dismal outlook on the future for farmers. Sugar was also affected by the storm, although the results were not as drastic. Only a third of the sugar crop could be harvested in 1899, but the soil was reinvigorated. The storm only affected the older haciendas, which would have been retired soon regardless of the hurricane. This allowed for newer technologies to be introduced to the sugar system and U.S. involvement increased. Overall, San Ciriaco helped and hurt the agriculture of Puerto Rico.
Meteorological history of Hurricane Patricia
At 23:00 UTC, the cyclone made landfall at Cuixmala in the municipality of La Huerta, Jalisco—about 55 mi (85 km) west-northwest of Manzanillo—with winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and an estimated pressure of 932 mbar (hPa; 27.49 inHg). This made Patricia the strongest hurricane to strike Mexico's Pacific coast, exceeding an unnamed storm in 1959 and Madeline in 1976 (the latter of which has not been reanalyzed). Although Patricia was operationally thought to have made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 165 mph (270 km/h) and a pressure of 920 mbar (hPa; 27.17 inHg), reanalysis of available data suggested that the hurricane weakened more rapidly than originally thought: an automated station in Cuixmala measured a pressure of 934.2 mbar (hpa; 27.54 inHg), while storm chasers in Emiliano Zapata, just inside the eye of Patricia, measured a pressure of 937.8 mbar (hPa; 27.70 inHg). Their observations also indicated a pressure gradient of 11 mbar (hPa; 0.32 inHg) per nautical mile.