Hurricane Polo climbed to Category 5 strength over the eastern Pacific this week before easing back into a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 150 mph as it churned roughly 165 miles south of Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Forecasters clocked its minimum central pressure at 889 millibars at its peak, a reading that makes Polo the second-strongest hurricane ever measured in the eastern Pacific basin. Only two hurricanes on record intensified faster than Polo did on the way there.
The storm’s rise was almost as remarkable as its size. In barely three days it went from a disorganized tropical depression to a major hurricane, gaining strength at a pace forecasters rarely see anywhere in the basin, then kept fluctuating: after dropping to Category 4 strength, Polo regained Category 5 status late Tuesday, with the National Hurricane Center’s overnight advisory putting sustained winds back up near 160 mph as the eyewall reorganized offshore.
A pressure drop that rivals only two other storms
Polo’s intensification put it in company that includes some of the fastest-strengthening hurricanes ever tracked. Only two hurricanes on record have undergone a more rapid intensification than Polo, according to EarthSky’s reporting on the storm, and its 889-millibar reading trails only one other hurricane in the eastern Pacific’s recorded history. Winds that sat near 45 mph on Sunday reached Category 5 strength within roughly 48 hours, a jump meteorologists attribute in part to sea-surface temperatures pushed to 88 degrees Fahrenheit by an unusually warm patch of ocean along the storm’s path. The center’s own advisory said Polo “has quickly strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane” as it churned roughly 145 miles southwest of Zihuatanejo, underscoring how unsettled the storm’s intensity remained even as it stayed offshore.
Fox Weather’s team put that run in longer historical context. Only nine hurricanes in the eastern and central Pacific have dropped below 900 millibars since 1950, and Polo’s peak winds of 180 mph placed it just behind Hurricane Patricia’s 215 mph in 2015 and Hurricane Linda’s 185 mph in 1997 for the strongest winds ever recorded in the basin. Polo is also the third hurricane to reach Category 5 in the eastern and central Pacific this season, joining Genevieve and Lowell — the first time three storms have hit that threshold there since 2018.
Guerrero and Michoacán brace for flooding rain
The National Hurricane Center kept a tropical storm warning in effect from Tecpan de Galeana to Punta San Telmo, with a watch extending farther west to Playa Perula, as Polo tracked parallel to Mexico’s southwestern coast rather than making landfall directly. Forecasters said Guerrero and Michoacán could see 3 to 6 inches of rain, with isolated totals up to 8 inches, and warned the rainfall could cause life-threatening flooding and mudslides in areas of steep terrain.
The coastal mountains behind Zihuatanejo and Acapulco funnel that kind of rainfall into narrow river valleys quickly, which is why civil protection officials treat even a glancing pass from an offshore hurricane as a flood threat rather than only a wind threat.
Rio Times Online reported wave heights of 3 to 4 meters along the affected coastline as Polo passed offshore, and it noted that Acapulco closed its port to small vessels, a routine precaution repeated at harbors up and down the coast as the storm’s outer bands arrived. Farther north in Jalisco, authorities opened 38 shelters as a precaution even though the state sat outside the core warning area.
Officials open shelters as Polo tracks past the coast
Guerrero alone opened 64 temporary shelters across 27 municipalities spanning the Costa Grande, Acapulco and Costa Chica regions, according to a report from Heraldo de Mexico. Roberto Arroyo Matus, the state’s secretary of comprehensive risk management and civil protection, urged residents near flood-prone areas to locate their nearest shelter rather than wait for a formal evacuation order, telling the outlet the sites offer lodging, medical attention and food for anyone displaced by the storm’s rain bands.
Classes were suspended across the Sierra, Costa Grande and Montaña Baja regions on Wednesday, adding to earlier closures in Acapulco, Costa Chica and Montaña Alta, while civil protection crews checked riverbanks and hillsides prone to landslides.
President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters the storm’s track kept it away from a direct hit on the mainland, saying the government’s information so far was that Polo “will not reach the coast directly.” Forecasters cautioned that an offshore track would still keep dangerous surf and heavy rain over the coast for days, even without landfall.
Whether Polo makes any closer approach to the southwestern United States remains an open question. Fox Weather hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross said some computer forecasts show the storm interacting with a second system, Tropical Storm Odalys, in a way that could pull additional moisture toward the border region later in the week. “Some computer forecasts show Odalys interacting with Polo in some fashion in several days,” Norcross said, adding that if those predictions hold, “Polo will be the stronger storm and will dominate, but each can still influence the track of the other, which adds uncertainty to the forecast.”
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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