Servicio Mareográfico Nacional UNAM operates two weather stations in the Acapulco area, of which one (located in the Acapulco port operated by the Administración del Sistema Portuario Nacional) measures and reports meteorological parameters. While this station stopped reporting during Hurricane Otis in the early morning hours of October 25, 2023, due to communication loss (a preliminary report with this dataset was published by SMN-UNAM here), the station remarkably managed to survive the hurricane and continued to log data offline. Miriam and Valente of UNAM were able to recover the data from the storm-stricken weather station, and the data they collected will undoubtedly be crucial in analyzing Otis's intensity.
The data itself, is, in short, incredible:
A maximum wind gust of 178.06 kt and a peak sustained wind (averaging period unspecified, but ordinarilly these tend to be 1-, 2-, 5-, or 10-minute) of 98.75 kt. The wind gust, exceeding 200 mph, is nearly the strongest gust ever observed by SMN-UNAM, though the National Hurricane Center has cast some doubts on the higher gust of 183 kt recorded during Hurricane Patricia in 2015. Sustained wind reports at major hurricane intensity are rare, so to see an observation here in a major city is fascinating and a testament to the strength of Otis and its impact in the city. A minimum pressure of 963.5 hPa was also reported by the station, which as anticipated is slightly higher than the minimum observed on Isla Roqueta given its farther distance from the center of Otis (which, although we generally know where it went, is still not very well resolved). My personal hunch is that Otis's central pressure was somewhere in the range of 938-950 hPa at its closest approach to Acapulco, but more rigorous analysis will be required to determine such a value more confidently.
