Hurricane Max (2005)

Hurricane Max was a short-lived hurricane that absorbed Tropical Storm Lidia. Tropical Depression Thirteen-E formed 500 mi south-southeast of the tip of the Baja California Peninsula on September 18. It was sufficiently close to Lidia that it steered Lidia rapidly to the north. The cyclone strengthened to Tropical Storm Max within a few hours, and absorbed the remnants of Tropical Depression Lidia. On late September 19 the tropical storm was upgraded to Hurricane Max. The system began to weaken almost immediately thereafter, however, and Max dissipated in the early morning hours of September 22. Since the tropical cyclone did not approach any land masses, no damage was reported.

Meteorological history
The system that led to the development of Max appears to have been a tropical wave that crossed the west coast of Africa on September 4. The wave proceeded across the tropical Atlantic without development, passed through the Lesser Antilles on September 10, and then traversed the Caribbean Sea. The southern portion of the wave crossed Central America on the 13th and entered the Eastern Pacific basin. The area of disturbed weather associated with the wave became large but disorganized on September 14 to the south of Guatemala. While the disturbance remained large during the next few days as it proceeded westward a couple hundred miles off the Pacific coast of Mexico, convection did not consolidate until September 16. That day the system received its first Dvorak classifications from the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch (TAFB) and the Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB). Tropical Depression Thirteen-E formed 500 mi south-southeast of the tip of the Baja California Peninsula on September 18 from a tropical wave. It was sufficiently close to Lidia that it blew the earlier, weaker storm rapidly to the north.

The cyclone strengthened to Tropical Storm Max within a few hours, and absorbed the remnants of Tropical Storm Lidia on September 19. Thereafter, it rapidly strengthened and the tropical storm was upgraded to Hurricane Max. Upon becoming a hurricane, The NHC noted that an eye became better organized on satellite imagery. It peaked as an 85 mph hurricane that day. Max began to weaken almost immediately thereafter, and weakened into a tropical depression in the early evening hours of September 22. The last advisory for the storm was issued by the National Hurricane Center the next day.

Impact
The merger of two tropical cyclones or the absorption of one tropical cyclone by another are uncommon events in the National Hurricane Center's area of responsibility. The last documented case of such an occurrence in the eastern North Pacific was when Hurricane Gil absorbed Tropical Storm Henriette in September 2001.

Since the tropical cyclone did not near any land masses and shipping kept their distance from the system, there was no damage from this hurricane.