The Pacific Has Entered Its September Era – September 1, 2026
Well.
September has arrived, and apparently, the Eastern Pacific has decided it has some unfinished business.
We now have three named systems on the board—powerful Hurricane Karina, Hurricane Lowell, and the newest member of the cast, Tropical Storm Marie.
And if yesterday’s atmosphere was merely getting interesting, today’s episode has actual plot development.
The tropics may be distant, but the weather pattern remains unsettled, and the models aren’t exactly singing from the same songbook.
So let’s meet today’s cast.
🌀 KARINA: The Overachiever
Let’s begin with the woman we seriously underestimated yesterday.
Hurricane Karina is still a Category 4 hurricane.
And this is the part we left out of yesterday’s story: Karina went from Category 1 to Category 4 in roughly 24 hours.
Her winds climbed about 65 mph in a single day, reaching 145 mph at her peak—putting her within just 12 mph of Category 5 strength.
That is not a minor forecast adjustment.
That is Karina walking into the room and announcing that she had plans of her own.
Satellite imagery showed an increasingly organized core and a remarkably well-defined eye as she intensified. By Monday night, the National Hurricane Center noted cloud tops around -80°C or colder, with satellite estimates suggesting winds near 120 kt.
This morning, however, Karina appears to be approaching her peak.
The eye has become somewhat cloud-filled, the convective pattern is less symmetric, and the expectation is for gradual weakening as she encounters progressively cooler ocean water and a drier atmosphere.
There is one interesting wrinkle: Karina could become annular, which can allow a hurricane to maintain its strength longer than expected while its structure changes.
Her track remains generally westward to west-northwestward, with a possible turn more toward the northwest later in the week.
She is a long way from land, but Karina has already given us one very good reminder:
Never assume a Category 1 is going to politely follow the forecast.
Apparently Karina didn’t get that memo.
🌀 LOWELL: Quietly Becoming a Problem for Someone Else
Then there’s Lowell.
And Lowell has been busy while everyone was watching Karina.
After spending several days fighting easterly wind shear, Hurricane Lowell has finally gotten his act together.
The latest satellite imagery shows a significantly improved structure, with a large area of very cold cloud tops and an impressive curved band wrapping into the circulation.
The result?
Lowell has strengthened to 80 mph and is moving west-northwest at about 12 mph.
And the forecast has become considerably more interesting.
The shear is expected to remain low, the waters along his path remain warm, and the core is now well formed enough to take advantage of those conditions.
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting rapid strengthening over the next day or two, with Lowell potentially reaching major hurricane strength and a forecast peak around 110 mph.
The track guidance is in relatively good agreement for the next several days, keeping Lowell generally westward to west-northwestward.
Later in the week, however, a trough north of Hawaii could weaken the ridge steering him, allowing Lowell to slow and potentially turn more toward the northwest.
And that puts Hawaii firmly on the list of places that need to keep watching.
Lowell may have been the quieter character in yesterday’s episode.
He isn’t being particularly quiet anymore.
🌀 AND THEN THERE’S MARIE.
Ah.
Marie.
Remember that mysterious 95E we were watching yesterday?
She has a name now.
And she’s already making an entrance.
Tropical Storm Marie was officially designated early Tuesday after satellite imagery showed the disturbance becoming better organized and scatterometer data found a well-defined circulation with tropical-storm-force winds.
As of this morning, Marie has 45 mph winds, is moving northwest at about 9 mph, and is approximately 400 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.
And yes—the ingredients we were talking about yesterday are still there.
Warm water.
Moist air.
Low wind shear.
A developing, increasingly organized circulation.
The National Hurricane Center expects Marie to strengthen steadily and become a hurricane by Wednesday night.
The current forecast brings her to around 100 mph by Thursday, before cooler water and a drier, more stable environment eventually begin taking their toll.
But here’s where the story gets interesting.
Where is Marie going?
For the next several days, the answer is fairly straightforward: generally northwest.
A subtropical ridge extending westward from northern Mexico is expected to steer her in that direction.
Then the atmospheric furniture starts moving.
A trough approaching the U.S. West Coast should weaken the ridge and slow Marie down. Later, as that trough fills and the ridge rebuilds to her north, Marie is expected to turn more toward the west-northwest.
And beyond about Day 3?
Well…
That’s where the models start arguing.
Some guidance keeps Marie farther north.
Other solutions turn her more sharply toward the west-northwest.
The official forecast sits somewhere in the middle, but confidence decreases later in the forecast because of that growing spread.
So the questions everyone is already asking—
What is Marie going to do?
Where is she going to go?
How strong will she become?
—are still legitimate questions.
And now we can answer at least one of them:
95E became Marie.
The rest of her storyline is still being written.
🌧️ And yes, the rain question is still part of this story.
This is where things get interesting for Baja California Sur—and why Marie matters even if her center never comes anywhere near Los Cabos.
Forecast guidance is showing an increasingly unsettled pattern later this week, with clouds and rain chances increasing around Thursday and Friday.
Marie is a likely source of at least some of that tropical moisture.
And this is an important distinction:
A tropical system does not have to come to you to affect your weather.
The storm’s center can remain hundreds of miles offshore while moisture gets transported northward, interacts with the atmosphere over Baja California Sur, and contributes to clouds, showers and thunderstorms.
So when a weather model paints rain over Cabo, don’t immediately go looking for a hurricane track pointed at the peninsula.
Sometimes the storm stays at sea.
The moisture comes visiting instead.
And that may be the more interesting story for us this week.
🌊 Marie May Have a Bigger Reach Than Her Track Suggests
And there is another part of Marie’s story worth watching: the ocean.
Even if Marie stays well offshore, a strengthening hurricane can have a very long reach. The latest wave-height forecast shows significant seas building around Marie to roughly 6–8 meters (20–26 feet), with elevated seas and swell spreading well away from the storm’s center. By Thursday, that energy is forecast to extend toward the Baja California peninsula, including waters off Baja California Sur.
That doesn’t mean 20-foot waves are coming ashore in Los Cabos—the graphic is showing the open-ocean wave field, not surf height at the beach. But it does mean Marie could become a significant swell producer for the peninsula, with rougher seas and larger surf possible well outside the storm’s forecast track.
And this is another reason not to judge a tropical system solely by where the little black dot is on the map.
Marie may stay hundreds of miles offshore and still make herself felt along Baja’s coast.
That, too, is part of her character development. 😉
🎭 THREE STORMS. THREE VERY DIFFERENT STORIES.
Karina is the established superstar who suddenly went from Category 1 to nearly Category 5 before beginning to weaken.
Lowell is the quiet one who finally found his footing and may become a major hurricane with Hawaii watching closely.
And Marie?
Marie just got her name.
She has warm water underneath her, favorable atmospheric conditions around her, and a forecast that looks increasingly impressive before the environment turns less hospitable.
Three storms.
Three storylines.
And a Pacific that clearly isn’t finished with us yet.
September just walked onto the stage.
Grab the popcorn. 🍿
We’re watching. 🌊🌀
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