2009 Pacific Hurricane Season

The 2009 Pacific hurricane season was the most active Pacific hurricane season since 1994. The season officially started on May 15 in the eastern Pacific, and on June 1 for the central Pacific, and officially ended on November 30, 2009. For the first time in ten years, no tropical depressions formed during the month of May. This inactivity continued into the early part of June and was the least active since 1994. The first named storm of the season did not develop until June 21, marking the latest start to a Pacific hurricane season in 40 years. However, according to the NHC's tropical weather summary, August 2009, with seven named storms in their region, was one of the most active Augusts on record for the basin. This level of activity had rarely occurred, if at all, in the past 41 years, since 1968, when the most active August on record for the region with eight named storms occurred. When Hurricane Rick reached Category 5 strength on October 17, 2009, it became the first Category 5 Eastern Pacific hurricane since Ioke in 2006, and the second-strongest Pacific hurricane on record, behind 1997's Linda.