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Abstract Hurricane Patricia (2015), the most powerful tropical cyclone (TC) on record, formed its secondary eyewall when its center was about 113 km offshore before its landfall at the southwestern coast of Mexico at around 2300 UTC 23 October. The ARW-WRF Model reproduced well the main features, allowing for a detailed investigation of the secondary eyewall formation (SEF). Our results show that the secondary eyewall developed from a stationary banding complex (SBC), originating from the intersection of two outer rainbands (OR1 and OR2) on the western side of the TC. This process was largely regulated and enhanced by the coastal terrain through the orographic channel effect. The results from sensitivity experiments show that increasing terrain height amplified the channel effect, accelerating airflow between the TC vortex and the terrain, strengthening convergence into OR1, and promoting midlevel descending inflow conducive to convective enhancement downstream in the SBC. While the terrain weakened low-level moisture transport, it also positioned OR2 closer to OR1, facilitating the formation of the SBC and accelerating the moat development. Backward trajectory analysis revealed that the inflows below the upper-level outflow layers of both the primary and secondary eyewalls contributed to moat development. With increasing terrain height, dry air transported into the moat region by the upper-level inflows from the secondary eyewall significantly increased, further suppressing convection in the moat. These findings offer novel insights into the understanding of SEF processes and underscore the importance of the topographic effects in shaping outer rainband organization, contributing to the moat and SEF. 

Abstract Hurricane Patricia (2015) formed over the eastern North Pacific and is the most intense tropical cyclone (TC) on record with a maximum sustained wind speed of 95 m s⁻¹, which presented a great forecasting challenge due to its unprecedented rapid intensification, record-breaking lifetime maximum intensity, and subsequent rapid weakening. The intensity and structure changes in Patricia were successfully simulated in a control experiment using a two-way interactive, quadruply nested version of the Weather Research and Forecasting Model with both initial and lateral boundary conditions from the Global Forecast System Final Analysis data. The successful simulation resulted from the inclusion of dissipative heating, realistic horizontal mixing length, and sea-spray-mediated heat flux. The relative contributions of these processes were assessed based on a series of ensemble-based sensitivity experiments and energetic diagnostics. Results show that dissipative heating and reduced horizontal mixing length had the most significant impacts on the intensification rate of Patricia after it reached an intensity of category 3, contributing 25.8% and 28.9% to the intensification rate and 11.7% and 14.1% to the lifetime maximum intensity, respectively. The contribution by spray-mediated heat flux increased significantly with wind speed, contributing up to 20.1% to the intensification rate and 20% to the surface energy flux under the eyewall at the wind speed of 90 m s⁻¹. An alternative surface drag coefficient scheme and a constant surface roughness for moisture and heat were also tested and discussed via sensitivity experiments. The study provides insights into the physical processes key to successful simulations and forecasts of extremely strong TCs.