Hurricane Polo Threatens to Fuel Flash Flooding in New Mexico and Texas

Hurricane Polo is forecast to make landfall in northwestern Mexico early next week. What is left of the storm will funnel tropical moisture up into New Mexico and Texas. Read on for the details.

Major Hurricane Polo Headed for Two Landfalls in Mexico

Polo briefly jumped up to a Category 5 status again on Thursday before dropping back to a Category 4 event later in the day. As of the late Thursday report from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Polo was packing maximum sustained winds of 150 mph as it churned to the south of Manzanillo, Mexico, moving at a speed of 9 mph. Although Polo is moving away from Mexico at this time, its outer bands of rain are still reaching parts of the western coastline.

While Polo is moving to the northwest now, it is expected to make a turn back toward Mexico this weekend. From there, the forecast models predict that the storm will make an initial landfall in northern Baja California Sur early in the week before making a second landfall roughly 24 hours later along the northwestern coast of mainland Mexico.

The steep terrain of northwestern Mexico will send the moisture-rich air upward, amplifying the rainfall and supporting the development of dangerous flash flooding across parts of Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Chihuahua. While the storm will begin to lose strength as it moves over the mountainous terrain, it could remain a tropical rainstorm as it travels farther inland.