Irene Becomes Olivia

September 20, 1971 - It was on this day that a hurricane made the big jump from the Atlantic basin to the Pacific Ocean.

It was 9 days earlier that Hurricane Irene started churning up trouble as a tropical depression in the South Atlantic. It moved almost due west and cut between Cuba and the tip of South America before making landfall in Nicaragua on the 19th. This is where most of the damage happened. As wind and floods wreaked havoc, over 1200 people were left homeless.

Irene's fury diminished as she spun out into the Pacific. Temporarily downgraded to a tropical depression, the storm began to travel northward along the coast of Central America.

In less than 24 hours the storm had regained its strength - and then some. It reached peak windspeed at 115 miles per hour. Now that it was once again a hurricane, it received a new name, Olivia.

Hurricane Olivia would eventually lose steam as she slammed into Mexico's Baja Peninsula. It was here that the winds finally died down for good.

The novelty of Irene/Olivia was her migration from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This was the first recorded instance of such a storm track.