Remnants of Hurricane Patricia Spawn Texas-Sized Flood

Patricia swiftly disintegrated after initial landfall for much the same reason that the swirl in your morning coffee chaotically comes to a rest once you stop quickly spinning the spoon—Patricia’s core vortex was disturbed by Mexico’s rugged landscape...[I]t’s perfectly normal for an intense hurricane like Patricia to quickly weaken after landfall—especially if it plows headlong into a mountain range—and, as I wrote on Friday, there are several reasons to expect extreme hurricanes like Patricia more frequently over the coming decades as the planet warms.