Hurricane Rachel reaches Category 3 intensity over the East Pacific
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-18 (GOES-West) Infrared Window images (above) displayed the cold cloud tops and periodic consolidation of a small and well-defined eye associated with Hurricane Rachel as it reached Category 3 intensity over the East Pacific Ocean (about 200 miles west of Mexico) on 01 October 2026. GLM Flash Points highlighted the intermittent lightning activity within deep convection surrounding the eye. The coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures were around -90 C (darker shades of purple).
In the corresponding 1-minute GOES-18 Visible images (below), the eye became mostly cloud-cleared for a few very brief periods.
Products from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site showed that Rachel was moving through an environment of low shear and traversing warm water (Sea Surface Temperature | Ocean Heat Content) — factors which favored its intensification.
Plots of ADT and AiDT (automated methods which objectively estimate tropical cyclone intensity using geostationary infrared imagery) depicted the brief period of Rachel’s more rapid intensification that began around 1800 UTC on 01 October (below).
After sunset, ample illumination from the Moon (in its Waning Gibbous phase, at 60% of Full) provided nighttime visible images of Rachel via the VIIRS Day/Night Band on Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 (below).