The origins of Hurricane Cesar were from a tropical wave and an elongated area of low-pressure that emerged into the Atlantic from the west coast of Africa on July 17.

Surface pressure steadily dropped as the system moved through the Lesser Antilles, and a circulation began developing near Trinidad and Tobago.

Based on surface and satellite data, it is estimated the system developed into Tropical Depression Three at 18:00 UTC on July 24 near Isla Margarita, off the north coast of Venezuela.

[1][2] With an unusually strong high pressure area located over The Bahamas, the tropical depression moved westward through the southern Caribbean near the northern coast of South America.

Its proximity to South America prevented significant strengthening, until late on July 26 when the storm reached the open waters of the southwest Caribbean Sea.

It moved quickly west-northward through the country, weakening to tropical storm status and emerging into the eastern Pacific Ocean by July 29.

[1] This made Cesar the most recent tropical cyclone to traverse from the Atlantic to east Pacific basin until Hurricane Otto achieved the same feat in 2016.

[10] On July 31, Douglas became much better organized as it turned more west-northwestward,[11] and it attained major hurricane status, or a Category 3 on the Saffir–Simpson scale, about 205 miles (330 km) southwest of Manzanillo.

Later that day, the hurricane attained its lowest pressure of 946 mbar, about 275 miles (443 km) south of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.

[12] Weakening continued due to cooler waters as Douglas turned to the west, and on August 3 the hurricane deteriorated to tropical storm status.

[1] The government of Colombia issued a tropical storm warning on July 25 from the border with Venezuela to Barranquilla as well as the islands of Aruba and Curaçao.

[6] Hurricane Cesar was a moisture-laden tropical cyclone that dropped heavy rains along its path through the southern Caribbean Sea and Central America.

[23] Although the storm passed directly over the region, the ABC islands off the coast of Colombia and Venezuela received little rainfall, peaking at 0.15 in (3.8 mm) on Curaçao.

At least three people were killed in storm related incidents,[15] two of which occurred when an avalanche buried a house in Pueblo Bello in the northern part of the country.

[24] Cesar brought torrential rains to the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina offshore eastern Nicaragua.

[19] As Cesar continued westward, it produced heavy flooding and mudslides in western El Salvador, killing 9 in the community of José Cecilio del Valle.