ORLANDO, Fla. – The 2022 hurricane season will now become a trivia question. For only the second time since 2000, a tropical system has moved from the Atlantic basin to the Pacific and maintained its name.
Tropical Storm Bonnie formed in the Atlantic Basin, but kept its Atlantic name even know it moved into the Pacific ocean.
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If a tropical system maintains its circulation while it moves over Central America and into a different basin, the system keeps its original name. Since the World Meteorological Organization changed the rules in 2000, only Otto in 2016 completed the journey.
Earlier this season, Agatha tried going from the Pacific to the Atlantic, but was quickly torn apart over the mountainous terrain of Central America. That terrain makes it difficult for a system to complete the basin-to-basin crossover.
The system needs to find the “sweet spot” and cross over Central America, basically where Otto and Bonnie crossed, where there isn’t as much land to travel over and the terrain is less aggressive.
Bonnie also happened to find Lake Nicaragua, which likely helped the storm maintain its structure and intensity.
So instead of having Darby, the fourth named storm of the season for the Eastern Pacific, Bonnie lives on, giving that basin its second “B” storm of the season.
Blas developed earlier in the Pacific hurricane season.
When the season is all wrapped up, for the Eastern Pacific season, you will find both Blas and Bonnie on the final list.
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