The storm named Polo has grown into one of the most powerful Pacific Ocean cyclones in decades and was expected to soon skirt Mexico’s southwestern coast as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds as strong as 165 mph.
Meanwhile, another Pacific system, Odalys, strengthened Wednesday from a tropical storm to a low-grade hurricane without threatening land, hurricane officials and news outlets are reporting.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami has called Polo an “extremely dangerous” storm that would eventually turn northwest and move further west in the coming days, reducing any potential impact on the California coast.
According to the Associated Press early Wednesday morning:
Polo was about 165 miles (266 kilometers) south of Zihuatanejo and 320 miles (515 kilometers) southeast of Manzanillo, the center reported. It was moving slowly north with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (241 kph). That put it at Category 4 strength after earlier being a Category 5 storm.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said experts indicated Polo was not likely to touch land. Still, hurricane-force winds extend up to 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the storm’s center and tropical storm-force winds up to 105 miles (169 kilometers) from the eye, the U.S. center said.
“Fluctuations in intensity are expected, but Polo is expected to remain a very powerful major hurricane during the next few days,” the NHC said.
Also near Mexico is Odalys, a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 miles an hour when it was about 1,295 miles off the southern tip of the Baha California peninsula.
Tropical storm conditions were expected along the Mexico Pacific Coast on Wednesday into Thursday.
On Tuesday, Polo became the third Category 5 of the Pacific hurricane season following Genevieve and Lowell earlier this year, which is the highest ranking such storms can achieve.
Past (HRC) data shows Polo’s winds reached speeds comparable to only a few Pacific hurricanes in recent decades, primarily Hurricane Patricia, which had winds that reached 215 mph in 2015.
“This is one of the strongest storms ever in the (Pacific) Basin,” Kristen L. Corbosiero, professor at the University at Albany’s Department of Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences, told AP.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued a weather alert, instructing citizens to avoid water and beaches and remain mindful of warnings from the Mexico government.
“Even if the storm does not make direct landfall, heavy rain may produce life-threatening flooding and mudslides. Hazardous ocean conditions — intensified by storms — may result in deadly rip currents and rogue waves,” the embassy wrote in a statement.
Warmer oceans and changing wind patterns are contributing to the proliferation of Pacific hurricanes this year, experts have said.
Strikingly, no hurricanes have formed this year yet in the Atlantic, and this year has set a record for the longest start to a season without a hurricane.
The effects of this year’s El Nino in the Atlantic have dissipated storms before they could develop into hurricanes, weather experts have said.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
