Formidable Hurricane Polo swirls off Mexico’s West coast

A Category 4 hurricane sat around 200 miles offshore of southern Mexico on Wednesday morning. Hurricane Polo was expected to skirt Mexico’s southwestern coast but was not likely to make landfall, according the National Hurricane Center. The hurricane slowly crept northward in a path roughly parallel to Mexico’s coast. On Tuesday, Polo had maximum sustained winds as high as 180 mph. But its strength fell to 155 mph, just below the threshold for a Category 5, the strongest on the hurricane scale. An environmental sciences professor at the University at Albany told the Associated Press that Polo was one of the strongest storms ever in the Pacific Basin.

What have authorities in Mexico said? Polo’s rainfall could cause life-threatening flooding and landslides, Mexico’s government said in a statement. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued a weather alert Tuesday, urging citizens to avoid entering the ocean or walking on beaches. Polo will cause hazardous ocean conditions, the embassy said.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Odalys strengthened on Wednesday from a tropical storm to a hurricane. Located well off the southern tip of Baja California, it was also deemed unlikely to make landfall.