benhocking's Journal: Cross-dressing hurricanes

Yesterday, I saw a story on BBC about Hurricane Lane with a picture like the story here. (The BBC story has been updated and that picture is gone.) When I first saw the picture (prior to reading the story), I wondered if Hurricane Lane could cross Mexico and enter the Gulf of Mexico. If it did, would it officially become an Atlantic storm at that point and get a new name (Hurricane Isaac)?

Now, as it turns out, it won't, but do Pacific Hurricanes (or tropical storms) ever cross to the Alantic?

On a related note, I'm wondering if CSU's decision to reduce their predictions might have been premature. Since we're already at 8/4/1, it wouldn't take much for that to pass the 13/5/2 modified prediction and make their earlier 15/7/3 or even 17/9/5 prediction more accurate. Of course, I'm quite ignorant when it comes to hurricanes, tropical storms, and their predictions.