Hurricane Lowell reaches Category 5 intensity over the Central Pacific
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Visible images (above) revealed mesovortices within the eye of Hurricane Lowell as it reached Category 5 intensity over the Central Pacific around 2100 UTC on 02 September 2026. GLM Flash Points highlighted the intermittent lighting activity within the surrounding eyewall.
A larger-scale view of 1-minute GOES-18 Infrared Window images (below) showed that the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were in the -75 to -80 C range (brighter white pixels embedded within dark black regions).
Products from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site indicated that Lowell was moving through an environment of low deep-layer wind shear (above) and was traversing warm Sea Surface Temperatures (below) — two factors that were favorable for Lowell’s rapid intensification (DMINT | SATCON).
