NOAA Hurricane Hunters capture footage from inside Hurricane Polo
NOAA Hurricane Hunters captured footage from inside Hurricane Polo during a research mission.
The unrelenting Pacific hurricane season continued its assault on Saturday, Sept. 26, as Hawaii braced for heavy rain and wind from Nolo, and Mexico prepared for a hit from Polo, now an “extremely dangerous” Category 5 monster with winds of 160 mph.
In addition, Category 3 Hurricane Odalys is also spinning in the open Pacific Ocean far from land.
Now about 425 miles off Cabo Corrientes on Mexico’s west coast, Hurricane Polo is forecast to make a turn and make landfall in Baja California Sur and then mainland Mexico by early next week, the National Hurricane Center said.
“Heavy rainfall associated with Polo may begin to impact Baja California Sur late Sunday [Sept. 27] into Monday [Sept. 28],” the hurricane center said. “This rainfall may produce life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in areas of steep terrain.”
Additionally, “distant moisture from Hurricanes Polo and Odalys will be transported into the southwestern United States this weekend and early next week, and may indirectly contribute to a heavy rainfall and flash flood threat in the region,” the hurricane center said.
Meanwhile, several thousand miles to the west of Polo, Category 2 Hurricane Nolo is passing south of the Big Island of Hawaii this weekend. Though it won’t make landfall, the hurricane center warned that periods of heavy rain are expected to continue across the Big Island and Maui through the weekend.
Life-threatening, catastrophic flooding and mudslides are possible, especially in areas of steep terrain across the eastern and southern portions of the Big Island and Maui, the hurricane center said.
Will Polo reach the United States?
Hurricane Polo will weaken as it crawls over land, and could enter the United States as a post-tropical depression early next week, forecasters have said. The National Hurricane Center’s track forecast shrunk a little overnight on Sept. 25 and no longer shows Polo fully extending into Texas and New Mexico as a post-tropical depression.
By the morning of Sept. 26, only a sliver of southern New Mexico and west Texas were in the cone for the possible path of Polo’s center as a tropical depression on Tuesday, Sept. 29.
It’s unusual for a tropical storm or depression from the Pacific Ocean to remain organized long enough to make it into Texas or New Mexico, according to this Historical Hurricane Tracks database from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
James Franklin, a retired branch chief for hurricane specialists at the National Hurricane Center, said he would be shocked if Polo’s remnants remained a tropical depression or storm by the time it arrived in Texas.
“It’s going to be over northern Mexico for a full day,” where it will travel over mountainous areas that would disrupt whatever is left of its center core, Franklin said.
No hurricane has ever made it to Texas from the Pacific, and only one tropical storm survived its journey over northern Mexico, the historical records show. In 1989, Hurricane Lester, which took a track very similar to the one forecast for Polo, arrived in Arizona as an organized tropical storm but quickly disintegrated into a tropical depression as it moved northeast into New Mexico.
In 1957, an unnamed hurricane made it into New Mexico, near El Paso, as an organized tropical depression. Hurricane Naomi in 1968 lost tropical depression characteristics just before it arrived at the Rio Grande. Hurricane Lidia in 1993 remained a tropical storm just barely across the Rio Grande as it crossed into Texas.
It’s a little more common for systems to arrive into Arizona as a tropical depression or storm, because the storms don’t spend as much time over the mountains in northern Mexico. In 1992, Lester moved into Arizona near Tucson as a tropical storm and into New Mexico as a tropical depression. An unnamed hurricane in 1958 crossed into New Mexico as a tropical depression and then moved into Texas.
These US states could get rain from Polo
The big concern in the United States with Hurricane Polo is the potential for a lot of rainfall, said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center.
The rain could be a problem for some of the areas in New Mexico that have already been getting a lot of rain, Hurley said. Monsoonal moisture already has been pushing ahead of Polo.
By late Tuesday, Sept. 29, and into Wednesday, Sept. 30, Polo’s remnants will be absorbed into another low-pressure system in the area, giving the other system energy and moisture, Hurley said.
The Weather Prediction Center on Sept. 25 extended its excessive rainfall outlook to indicate a high risk five days out. That’s “very uncommon,” Hurley said. The chance of excessive rainfall extends from Texas into Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and farther north.
3 hurricanes churn in Pacific all at once
The hurricane center is watching a busy Pacific Ocean, with Hurricanes Polo, Nolo and Odalys all churning and two disturbances that could turn into tropical cyclones.
This is only the third time in recorded history that three hurricanes, each with wind speeds of at least 105 mph, are live all at once in the region, said Philip Klotzbach, a senior research scientist with the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, in a post on X.
Klotzbach said the only other times were on Aug. 16, 1993, when Keoni, Fernanda and Greg were spinning at the same time; and Aug. 29 through Aug. 31, 2015, with Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena.
It’s been a busy 2026 hurricane season in the Pacific. That’s thanks in part to El Niño creating favorable low wind shear conditions and very warm water.