(End of the American Dream)—Hurricane Polo is an absolutely monstrous storm that everyone that lives in the entire state of California should be closely monitoring right now. On Monday, it was just a tropical storm that very few people had heard about. By Tuesday, it had become the most intense hurricane in the Western Hemisphere so far this year. It experienced one of the fastest rates of rapid intensification on record, and it is now a Category 5 storm. The National Hurricane Center is calling Polo “extremely dangerous”, and meteorologists are waiting to see what it does next. Is it possible that it will actually hit California?
It is very rare to see a storm of this magnitude in the eastern Pacific.
According to CNN, Hurricane Polo “is still strengthening” even after reaching Category 5…
Hurricane Polo is still strengthening after undergoing extreme rapid intensification and becoming a rare Category 5 on Tuesday morning in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico.
The 165 mph storm is feeding off of a favorable atmosphere and warmer water driven by the super El Niño, which is fueling a hyperactive hurricane season across the Pacific.
165 mile per hour winds can literally rip homes to shreds.
So this is a very, very serious storm.
The National Hurricane Center is usually very conservative in describing storms, but even they are calling it “extremely dangerous”, and they expect Polo to continue to intensify through Wednesday…
Hurricane Polo rapidly intensified off the coast of southwestern Mexico on Tuesday, growing into a powerful Category 5 storm that could bring life-threatening flooding to parts of the states of Guerrero and Michoacán, the National Hurricane Center said.
The hurricane center called Polo “extremely dangerous” on Tuesday, as its maximum sustained winds climbed to 165 mph. It will likely continue to strengthen through Wednesday, it said.
For now, Hurricane Polo is expected to move parallel to Mexico’s coastline.
But after that, where it will go is not exactly clear…
Over the next few days, he said, the storm is expected to drift parallel to Mexico’s coast. By 6 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, however, it is predicted to be near the southern tip of Baja California.
“Beyond that, we’ll have to see exactly where our forecast models want to take it,” Munyan said.
There are some models that have Hurricane Polo tracking way out into the Pacific.
But there are other models that have Hurricane Polo moving “toward California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas”…
Models show a handful of scenarios carrying Polo or its remnants toward California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas over the next seven to 10 days.
Southern California faces the earliest potential impacts, with large swells, dangerous rip currents and tropical humidity possible by the weekend even if Polo remains offshore.
Some model runs then carry the weakening remnants across northern Mexico into Arizona and New Mexico, with moisture potentially reaching western Texas later.
No hurricane has ever made landfall in the entire recorded history of the state of California.
If Hurricane Polo were to do so, it would truly be a historic event.
So we shall watch and see what happens.
On Monday, nobody was even talking about Polo.
But then it transformed from a weak tropical storm to a Category 5 monster in a 24 hour period…
Polo intensified from a 50-mph tropical storm on the morning of Monday, Sept. 21, to a 160-mph Category 5 hurricane in 24 hours, according to AccuWeather forecasters.
Conditions have to be just right for extreme rapid intensification to occur.
On Monday, Hurricane Polo benefitted from “low wind shear, humid air and deep, warm ocean water”, and that resulted in a level of intensification that was “truly remarkable”…
Extreme rapid intensification is a wind increase of 58 mph or more in 24 hours. Polo met that criteria and then some, with a wind increase of 110 mph, going from a 50 mph tropical storm to a 160 mph Category 5 from Monday to Tuesday morning.
This rate of rapid intensification is “truly remarkable,” the National Hurricane Center said Tuesday morning, and is among the fastest on record in the Eastern Pacific.
As it went through the process of rapid intensification, Hurricane Polo almost set a world record.
In fact, it came within 10 mph of matching the rapid intensification that Hurricane Patricia experienced in 2015…
Polo didn’t just pass the rapid intensification exam.
Its peak winds exploded by a whopping 110 mph in 24 hours.
That’s just 10 mph shy of the world record rapid intensification by wind speed, a 120 mph leap Hurricane Patricia made before it slammed into Mexico in late October 2015.
To me, it is very interesting that Hurricane Polo went through this process of extreme rapid intensification as millions of people around the world observed Yom Kippur.
Also on Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom suddenly declared a state of emergency…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday morning that he is declaring a state of emergency ahead of what could be the strongest El Niño on record.
Newsom’s office issued a statement confirming that state resources are being mobilized before the potential winter storms and associated impacts.
“The emerging El Niño event is already breaking records, and forecasters expect it to continue to strengthen, potentially becoming the strongest in recorded history,” the statement reads in part. “Today’s emergency proclamation streamlines measures to help California prepare for this historic event.”
Did Newsom just figure out that this Super El Niño could be a problem?
Of course not.
So why was there such urgency to declare a state of emergency?
There is no imminent threat to the state from this Super El Niño other than Hurricane Polo.
But we are supposed to believe that this state of emergency doesn’t have anything to do with this storm.
Maybe that is true, but I am not buying it.
I think that Newsom and his minions realize that Hurricane Polo could potentially slam into their state.
If it does, the damage will be off the charts.
Of more immediate concern is the “massive nor’easter storm” that has started to pummel the east coast…
A massive nor’easter storm sweeping across the eastern US has set off flood warnings and dangerous wind alerts for millions across 13 states.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued coastal flood advisories in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia, with forecasters warning that areas along the Atlantic could see waves reach 12 feet in height.
Heavy downpours and wind gusts as powerful as a tropical storm are expected to make conditions potentially life-threatening from Michigan to Georgia, with the heaviest rain falling in parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina.
I could have easily done an entire article about this storm, because it is going to hit tens of millions of Americans really hard.
According to AccuWeather, extremely damaging coastal flooding is expected all the way through Friday…
AccuWeather added in a statement: ‘Coastal flooding, especially around high tide, is likely from North Carolina to Massachusetts from Tuesday through Friday.’
‘The threat may persist along the northern mid-Atlantic coast and expand into southeastern New England this weekend.’
In 2026, the U.S. has been hit by one major disaster after another.
But if a hurricane actually makes landfall in California, that will truly be a landmark event.
I don’t know if Hurricane Polo will be the storm to make history or not, but I will certainly be watching.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
