Friday, September 4, 2026
Cabo doesn’t need a hurricane to remind us how powerful the weather can be.
Sometimes the storm stays offshore.
Sometimes the center never comes near us.
And still, the streets fill.
The arroyo runs.
The mountains disappear behind rain.
And suddenly a place that can spend months begging the sky for a drop of water is asking the sky to stop.
This is Cabo.
Beautiful. Brutal. Complicated.
And this week, she is very, very wet. 🌧️🌴
Cabo San Lucas no longer has multiple weather stations reporting rainfall, which varies from one neighborhood to another. There is one near Tezal that reported for duty this week:
2.50 inches on September 2.
2.50 inches on September 3.
1.87 inches so far today, September 4.
That’s 6.87 inches in three days, compliments of Hurricane Marie’s outer bands.
And the fabulous news?
Marie is moving even farther away from Los Cabos.
And once the rain stops, the cleanup begins. Crews and residents get to work almost immediately, clearing streets, moving debris and dealing with whatever the storm left behind.
Because this is Cabo. Beautiful, brutal, complicated—and remarkably resilient.
Because naturally, there is more.
🌀 Marie: The Girl Who Finally Got Her Eye on the Prize
Marie has had quite the character arc.
Yesterday, the hurricane was still dealing with some dry air and a somewhat ragged inner core. But overnight, convection improved, and Marie maintained hurricane strength.
As of the 8 AM PDT Friday advisory, Marie had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, a minimum pressure of 972 mb, and was about 550 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California.
She’s moving west-northwest at about 9 mph.
And, thankfully for Baja, she is moving away from us.
That doesn’t mean Marie is finished being interesting.
The hurricane remains over warm water and in relatively low wind shear, so some additional strengthening is still possible. But dry air and cooler sea-surface temperatures will eventually begin taking their toll, with weakening expected to begin Saturday and become more substantial next week.
The forecast also calls for Marie to turn gradually toward the northwest as a trough moves into the western United States and weakens the ridge currently steering her.
The longer-range forecast still carries lower-than-average confidence.
Which is meteorological language for:
The atmospheric writers haven’t finished this chapter yet.
For Los Cabos, however, the biggest concern from Marie now is not a landfall.
It’s the ocean.
Swells generated by Marie will continue affecting portions of the Baja California Peninsula for the next several days, with potentially life-threatening surf and rip-current conditions.
So yes, Marie is leaving.
She is just leaving some waves behind.
🌪️ Karina: The Former Queen of the Pacific
Remember Karina?
The hurricane that went from Category 1 to Category 4 in roughly a day?
The one with the enormous, almost annular-looking eye?
She’s still here.
But the queen is losing her crown.
Karina is now in the Central Pacific, and as of Friday morning she had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, making her a Category 1 hurricane.
She’s about 955 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii, moving west at roughly 10 mph.
Satellite imagery shows the northern and western side of the storm degrading as dry air works its way into the circulation. Her eye has become less distinct, and the deepest convection is now concentrated primarily in the eastern half of the system.
The atmosphere is beginning to collect its debts.
Increasing wind shear and a progressively drier environment will continue weakening Karina over the weekend. She’s expected to become post-tropical early next week.
But there is one more little bit of character development:
Karina may interact with Lowell. (Future ❤️ story?)
As the two systems approach one another early next week, their interaction could influence Karina’s eventual motion.
And because apparently the Pacific needed another subplot, we’re going to watch that one too.
Karina is not expected to threaten the Hawaiian Islands.
🌀 Lowell: The Monster Isn’t Finished
And then there is Lowell.
Oh, Lowell.
He went from major hurricane to Category 5 yesterday, because apparently this season’s Pacific cast wasn’t dramatic enough already.
This morning, Lowell has backed down somewhat to 125 mph, making him a Category 3 major hurricane.
But don’t let the category number fool you into thinking he’s suddenly unimportant.
He remains a formidable hurricane with an intense ring of deep convection around his eye.
And the Hurricane Hunters are scheduled to investigate Lowell today, which should give forecasters much better information about his current structure and intensity.
Lowell is about 600 miles south of Lihue, Hawaii, moving west at roughly 8 mph.
And this is where his storyline gets particularly important for Hawaii.
Lowell is expected to continue generally westward through Saturday. Then, sometime Sunday, the steering pattern changes.
A mid- to upper-level low moving southwestward north of Hawaii is expected to erode the ridge that has been keeping Lowell moving west.
The result?
A sharp turn north or north-northeast.
Exactly where that turn occurs—and exactly how close Lowell gets to the western Hawaiian Islands—remains uncertain.
The models agree on the general setup, but there is still meaningful spread regarding how close the core gets to Kauai County.
And Lowell has plenty of warm water and favorable conditions ahead of him for possible restrengthening.
NHC’s forecast currently brings him back to approximately 140 mph over the next couple of days.
After that, increasing southwesterly wind shear and cooler water should finally begin weakening him.
But Lowell could still be near major-hurricane strength when he approaches the western Hawaiian Islands Monday into Monday night.
Hawaii is watching.
Very closely.
🌧️ Meanwhile, Back in Cabo…
While three hurricanes are spinning across the Pacific, Cabo is dealing with the aftermath of Marie’s very large and very wet personality.
The 6.87 inches recorded near Tezal over September 2–4 is a remarkable amount of rain for a place where the landscape normally spends much of the year waiting for it.
And we need to emphasize something important about those numbers:
These are readings from a private weather station, not the publicly accessible network that we once had through stations such as icabos3.
Rainfall here is notoriously localized, so one neighborhood can receive a deluge while another gets considerably less.
We also don’t yet have a complete picture of how much rain fell across Los Cabos overnight and early this morning.
Showers are expected to continue.
So if your neighborhood got hammered and somebody 10 minutes away says, “What rain?”— though not from Marie directly.
Welcome to Cabo.
🏖️ And Please, Watch the Flags
The rain isn’t the only reason to pay attention to today’s conditions.
Beach flags matter.
Marie may be moving away, but the swells she generated don’t simply disappear when the hurricane does.
With elevated surf and rip-current risks, please check the flag before entering the water and follow the instructions of lifeguards and Protección Civil.
A beautiful Cabo morning is not an invitation to argue with the Pacific.
The Pacific usually wins.
🌴 The Cast Is Still on Stage
So, where are we this morning?
MARIE: Hurricane, 100 mph, moving away from Baja—but still generating swell and contributing to our wet week.
KARINA: Category 1 hurricane, weakening in the Central Pacific, with a possible interaction with Lowell ahead.
LOWELL: Category 3 major hurricane, potentially restrengthening before making that important turn toward the Hawaiian Islands.
And somewhere out over the Pacific, the next character is already waiting in the wings.
The National Hurricane Center is also watching another area of low pressure that could develop well offshore of southwestern Mexico early next week. Development is currently expected to be gradual, with a 50% chance of tropical cyclone formation over seven days.
Because apparently September has decided that three hurricanes weren’t enough.
The tropics may be distant, but the weather pattern remains unsettled, and the models aren’t exactly singing from the same hymnal.
For now, we’re watching.
Watching the storms.
Watching the ocean.
Watching the rain gauges.
Watching the beach flags.
And watching Cabo dry out between showers.
The novela continues. 🌴🌀🌧️
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