El Niño protects Mexico from potentially dangerous hurricane season

Mexico weathered a record eastern Pacific hurricane season with almost no deaths and relatively little damage, given the intensity of this year's storms.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its 2015 hurricane season report Tuesday, saying that "this is the first year since reliable record keeping began in 1971 that the eastern Pacific saw nine major hurricanes," which are defined as Category 3 or higher with winds of at least 111 mph (178 kph).

Turning to the worst of . . .