The system that became Hurricane Julia originated as a tropical wave which entered the Atlantic near the end of September. It took a low latitude route across the basin but began to show some spin on satellite imagery by around October 3 as it was approaching the southern Windward islands. On October 4, a surface low formed and was easily visible as a naked swirl of clouds on satellite imagery; all thunderstorm activity was displace southeast of the center. This small vortex was ejected westward and dissipated, while the broad mid-level circulation took a more southerly route. As a result, the disturbance had significant land interaction with the northern coast of Venezuela, which slowed its development. That did not stop the system from being a prodigious rainmaker in that country, however.
Tropical Depression Thirteen formed at last late on October 6, when the center was still located near the coast of Venezuela. A ridge of high pressure was steering the depression quickly westward and also keeping it from gaining latitude. On the 7th, it strengthened into Tropical Storm Julia. Julia had some initial trouble with maintaining a well-defined center of circulation and some shear out of the northeast kept the northern semicircle bare but for some scattered spiral bands. Nevertheless, the warm waters of the Caribbean fueled steady intensification.
The storm veered a little south of west on October 8 and found a pocket of more favorable atmospheric conditions, allowing it to intensify into a hurricane. Extremely intense convection blossomed around the center that night as Julia approached landfall in Nicaragua. The cyclone reached a peak intensity of 85 mph winds and a pressure of 982 mb before making landfall very early in the morning on October 9. The storm brought very high rainfall rates to Nicaragua, but was also still moving quickly, so the rainfall was not prolonged. By the afternoon, the center of Julia emerged into the eastern Pacific, still maintaining tropical storm strength. It was the second storm after Bonnie to maintain tropical storm strength crossing from the Atlantic to the east Pacific; this was the first year that two such events were recorded. Julia maintained the same name as an eastern Pacific tropical storm.
It turned west-northwest and generally moved parallel to the coast of central America, bringing additional precipitation to El Salvador and Guatemala over the next day. Though it was over water, atmospheric conditions and proximity to land prevented the system from recovering, and Julia weakened into a tropical depression; it dissipated near the coast of Guatemala on October 10.
The above image shows Hurricane Julia at landfall very early on October 9.
Julia was the second storm of the year to cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
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