Meteorology Matters

Hurricane Polo delivered one of the most extraordinary rapid-intensification episodes of the 2026 Eastern Pacific hurricane season — exploding from a 50-mph tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane, then reaching an astonishing 180 mph with a central pressure of 892 millibars according to NOAA Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance.
In this episode of Meteorology Matters, we examine how Polo intensified so violently in such a short period of time. What happens when exceptionally warm ocean water, deep ocean heat content, abundant moisture, low vertical wind shear, strong upper-level outflow, and a compact inner core all come together? The result can be explosive tropical-cyclone intensification on a scale that remains extremely difficult to forecast.
We also put Polo into the larger context of the 2026 Eastern Pacific season, examining the influence of El Niño, the basin’s elevated activity and ACE, and the striking contrast with the unusually suppressed Atlantic hurricane season.
Then we turn toward the United States and one of the most intriguing questions raised by powerful Eastern Pacific hurricanes: Why do these storms so rarely reach California? We explore the subtropical ridge, typical westward steering, the California Current, coastal upwelling, cooler waters, and the late-September-to-October transition that can make northward recurvature more possible.
Polo is more than a story about an extraordinarily powerful hurricane. It is a case study in rapid intensification, ocean-atmosphere interaction, tropical cyclone structure, El Niño, Eastern Pacific climatology, and the complex steering patterns that determine where these storms ultimately go.
#HurricanePolo #EasternPacific #RapidIntensification #ElNino #MeteorologyMatters

One hundred years ago, on September 18, 1926, the Great Miami Hurricane struck a booming, vulnerable South Florida and permanently changed the region’s history.
Meteorology Matters reconstructs the storm, the uncertain forecasts and the public confusion surrounding its arrival—including the tropical system that had brought flooding only days earlier and the newspaper headlines that finally warned South Florida a hurricane might be approaching.
But this anniversary is about more than wind, water and destruction. The episode examines what happened after the hurricane, when Miami’s Black community faced discrimination, unequal treatment and demands to perform dangerous recovery work under the threat of arrest—the disturbing history remembered as “work or jail.”
How did warning failures, rapid development, racial injustice and an incomplete historical record shape the way the disaster was remembered? And whose experiences were left out of the familiar story?
The episode also introduces 1926Hurricane.com, a major historical project devoted to the hurricane, its victims, survivors, science and lasting consequences. The website makes landfall at 7:00 a.m. Miami time on September 18, exactly 100 years after the hurricane’s official landfall.
Visit https://1926Hurricane.com
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#GreatMiamiHurricane #MiamiHurricane #1926Hurricane #HurricaneHistory #MiamiHistory #BlackMiami #SouthFloridaHistory #MeteorologyMatters #WeatherHistory

The Atlantic hurricane season has passed its climatological peak without producing a single hurricane an extraordinary modern-era record occurring while much of the planet and its oceans remain exceptionally warm.
In this episode of Meteorology Matters, we examine how a rapidly strengthening El Niño is reorganizing tropical weather around the world: suppressing Atlantic development, helping fuel an unusually active Pacific, and setting the stage for major changes as we move toward winter.
We also look at the extraordinary persistence of summer heat across Europe, exceptionally warm waters in the eastern tropical Pacific and Mediterranean, and a developing Mediterranean cyclone signal that some models suggest could acquire subtropical or tropical-like characteristics.
Then we turn toward the United States: what a very strong El Niño could mean for Southern California, Florida and the Southeast, and the Northeast during the coming winter.
Finally, September 18 marks 100 years since the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926. Meteorologist Rob Jones previews the launch of 1926Hurricane.com, a new historical archive devoted to preserving the storm’s meteorology, photographs, documents, maps and human history. Meteorology Matters will also release a dedicated Great Miami Hurricane centennial episode later this week.
It is an extraordinary atmospheric contrast: one century ago this week, a classic Cape Verde hurricane was approaching South Florida. In 2026, we have passed the statistical peak of hurricane season without even producing the Atlantic’s first hurricane.
#MeteorologyMatters #ElNino #ElNino2026 #HurricaneSeason #AtlanticHurricaneSeason #TropicalWeather #Hurricanes #Medicane #Mediterranean #ExtremeHeat #ENSO #Weather #GreatMiamiHurricane #1926Hurricane #MiamiHurricane #HurricaneHistory

Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, Meteorology Matters looks back at the extraordinary weather story unfolding alongside one of the darkest days in American history.
That morning, New York City sat beneath an unusually clear post-frontal sky while Hurricane Erin churned hundreds of miles offshore. After the World Trade Center attacks, satellite imagery captured something remarkable: the enormous circulation of Erin over the Atlantic and the smoke and dust plume streaming away from lower Manhattan in the same view.
This special episode reconstructs the meteorology of September 11th, Erin’s position and intensity, the atmospheric pattern that helped carry the plume southward, what NASA satellites and astronauts aboard the International Space Station observed, and how the unprecedented shutdown of U.S. airspace created a rare opportunity for scientists to study aircraft contrails and their possible effects on temperature.
We also examine how meteorologists and NOAA supported the response and recovery at Ground Zero through specialized forecasts, plume modeling, remote sensing and atmospheric monitoring.
The weather did not cause the events of September 11, but it shaped what millions of people saw, what satellites recorded, where smoke and debris traveled, and even the scientific questions that emerged in the days that followed.
A special 25th-anniversary episode of Meteorology Matters.
Keywords: September 11 weather, Hurricane Erin, 9/11 meteorology, World Trade Center smoke plume, NASA satellite imagery, Hurricane Erin 2001, 9/11 contrails, Meteorology Matters
Hashtags: #MeteorologyMatters #September11 #September11th #911Anniversary #HurricaneErin #WeatherHistory #Meteorology #Weather #NASA #HurricaneHistory

On Labor Day 1935, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the United States exploded into a Category 5 storm and slammed into the Florida Keys with estimated sustained winds of 185 mph and a central pressure of 892 mb, the lowest pressure assigned to a U.S. hurricane landfall.
But this disaster is about much more than the storm itself. Hundreds of World War I veterans were living in federal work camps along the Keys, and an evacuation train sent from Miami reached Islamorada just as catastrophic winds and storm surge arrived.
In this episode of Meteorology Matters, we reconstruct the extraordinary meteorology, the primitive forecasting network that struggled to locate the hurricane, Leonard Povey’s historic reconnaissance flight, the desperate rescue-train mission, survivor accounts, and the controversial aftermath that led Ernest Hemingway to ask, “Who Murdered the Vets?”
More than 400 people died, including roughly 250–260 World War I veterans. Nearly a century later, the disaster still raises a difficult question: how much responsibility does government have to protect vulnerable people when the forecast itself remains uncertain?