On September 25, 2026, category 5 Hurricane Polo was moving slowly westward over warm Eastern Pacific waters. Forecasters predicted that the storm would move west and north before turning northeast and making landfall on Baja California Sur around September 28. As of 15:00 UTC on September 25, NOAA's National Hurricane Center reported that Polo had maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (285 km/h), with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 40 miles (65 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extending 115 miles (185 km).
The image above is a Black Marble nighttime blue/yellow composite acquired in the early morning hours of September 25, 2026, by the VIIRS instrument aboard the Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) platform. Note the very prominent and deep eye of Polo, a visible expression of the storm's intensity. Polo intensified from a tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours, with wind speeds increasing by 90 knots (170 kilometers per hour or 105 miles per hour). It has fluctuated between category 4 and category 5 strength for several days.
"Polo went through a period of what can only be described as explosively rapid intensification," Gary Partyka, an atmospheric scientist with the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told NASA Earth Observatory. "This was RAPID, rapid intensification." The storm developed in an environment characterized by weak wind shear, high moisture, warmer ocean temperatures, and high levels of atmospheric instability—"near perfect" for strengthening, he noted.
The image also shows Hurricane Odalys to the west. That category 4 hurricane had maximum sustained winds near 130 mph (215 km/h), but it was not expected to approach land and was likely to dissipate by September 29 or 30.
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