By Paolo Laudani
Polo’s hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 40 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 125 miles .
Sept 24 – Heavy surf and rain lashed southwestern Mexico as “extremely powerful” Hurricane Polo crawls northwest offshore the mainland, the US National Hurricane Center said in a bulletin on Thursday. The NHC said that Polo’s outer rainbands are spreading onshore and producing heavy rains. Tropical-storm-force winds are likely occurring along the coast of southwestern Mexico, it said. “These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf, rip currents, and coastal flooding,” said the NHC. AccuWeather hurricane expert Nicholas Arman said that if the hurricane stays on the expected track, some rain and moisture can be pulled into Texas. “This is textbook El Niño impacts where the strong tropical development in the Pacific ultimately pushes moisture into the southwestern US,” he said How much rain and moisture reaches Texas depends on the storm’s ability to cross the Sierra Madre mountains, a major mountain range system which runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. “The Sierra Madre often act like a cheese grater to an organized system, shredding it apart and preventing any organized tropical feature from staying together,” Arman added.
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With maximum sustained winds near 155 miles per hour Polo has been classified last as a Category 4 storm, a notch down from level 5, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which it had previously reached. Earlier reporting noted: NOAA forecast rainfall totals of up to 6 inches (15cm), with some areas potentially receiving as much as 8 inches.
Earlier reporting noted: Hurricane Polo intensifies to Category 5 storm: 5 key things to know about Mexico threat, rainfall and more Hurricane Polo has rapidly intensified into a rare Category 5 storm in the Pacific Ocean, with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warning of an “extremely dangerous” system capable of bringing torrential rain, flooding and mudslides to parts of Mexico .
Earlier reporting noted: Polo’s slow movement could bring significant rainfall to parts of Mexico’s southwestern coast even without a direct landfall.
Polo Expected to Strengthen Before Landfall
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has indicated that Hurricane Polo could experience near-term strengthening and is expected to remain a major hurricane for the next several days. AccuWeather forecasts that Polo will make landfall late Sunday night into Monday, likely weakening to a Category 2 hurricane as it moves across the Baja California peninsula, north of Cabo San Lucas. In anticipation of the storm, local authorities have begun restricting beach access and closing the harbor.
Additionally, coastal regions in the Mexican states of Michoacan, Colima, northern and southern Jalisco, and Nayarit are projected to receive rainfall totals ranging from 2 to 4 inches, with isolated areas potentially seeing up to 6 inches.
