A second Pacific system south of Guatemala carries 80% odds of becoming a tropical cyclone within 48 hours

The National Hurricane Center put an 80 percent chance on a tropical cyclone forming from a disturbance called EP93 within 48 hours. The disturbance sits several hundred miles south-southwest of the coast of Guatemala, and it is the second Pacific system on the map behind Hurricane Simon.

The 80 percent figure is a snapshot, and it is the short-range one. The same outlook put the seven-day chance at 90 percent. Everything below is pinned to that single issuance, so any later outlook may carry different numbers. The eastern Pacific outlook season runs from May 15 to November 30, which puts mid-October still inside the period when the hurricane center issues these products, and a fresh edition can supersede the one described here at any time.

The 500 AM PDT outlook that carried EP93

The National Hurricane Center put an 80 percent chance on a tropical cyclone forming from a disturbance called EP93 within 48 hours, in its Eastern Pacific tropical weather outlook issued at 500 AM PDT on Monday, October 12, 2026. Outlooks like this one are reissued on a fixed rhythm. The hurricane center’s own explainer for its outlook products says they come out four times daily for each basin, which means the 500 AM PDT edition on October 12 was one of several that day and has almost certainly been followed by newer ones. The product header for this edition carried a time of 1154 UTC on the 12th, and the forecaster listed on the text was Hagen. A reader checking the situation on the morning of October 13 should treat the October 12 numbers as the last ones verified here, not as a live reading.

The text covers the whole eastern and central North Pacific east of 180 degrees longitude, so EP93 shares the product with an active hurricane. That is why the outlook lists Simon first as a system with advisories being issued, then moves to the disturbance as a separate item with its own odds. The two systems are tracked independently, so a rise or fall in one set of numbers says nothing about the other, and readers should not carry Simon’s hurricane status over to the newer disturbance.

Eighty percent in two days is not the same as ninety percent in a week

Two numbers appear next to EP93, and they answer different questions. The 80 percent is the formation chance through 48 hours. The 90 percent is the formation chance through seven days. The longer window is always at least as large as the shorter one, because anything that forms inside two days has also formed inside a week. Reading 80 percent as a weekly figure would understate the odds, and reading 90 percent as the near-term figure would overstate them.

Both sit in the hurricane center’s top bracket. According to the center’s outlook explainer, low means 0 to 30 percent, medium means 40 to 60 percent, and high means 70 to 100 percent, a scheme adopted in 2015. In the October 12 text, both the 48-hour and seven-day entries for EP93 read high.

The wording also matters for how the 80 percent is read. What forms is a tropical cyclone, and the glossary treats a depression and a storm as different stages of one. A tropical depression has maximum sustained winds of 38 mph or less, while a tropical storm runs from 39 to 73 mph and a hurricane starts at 74 mph. The outlook itself expects a tropical depression to form first, well south of southern Mexico, within two days. Whether it reaches storm strength is a separate forecast the outlook does not make.

A broad low gathering over open water

The outlook describes EP93 as a broad area of low pressure producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. It is gradually becoming better defined, which is the usual precursor to a closed circulation. At the time of the outlook it was moving west-northwestward at about 10 mph, which carries it roughly parallel to the coast and away from land rather than toward it. The text places the expected depression well south of southern Mexico.

That geometry is the reason the Guatemala reference should be read as a position marker. The disturbance is south-southwest of the coast by several hundred miles, and the outlook issues no watches or warnings, since none are issued for a system that has not yet formed. The forecast path, as written on October 12, does not point at Guatemalan shores.

The official place to see the area outlined is the graphical Eastern Pacific outlook page, which redraws the shaded area as new editions arrive.

Simon, Rachel and a crowded October map

Simon was centered about 50 miles off the coast of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico, in the same outlook, so the Pacific side of Mexico was already watching one named hurricane while a second system organized to the south. The season has been busy. Rachel, designated EP182026, received its final advisory as a remnant low on October 11, with rain of 1 to 3 inches forecast for parts of the southwestern United States. Anyone with interests along the Pacific coast of Mexico or Central America should read the newest outlook rather than this summary, because six-hourly updates can raise, lower or retire the figures quoted here.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

More from Morning Overview