Did El Niño turn Hurricane Polo into the most powerful storm of the season?

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Hurricane Polo, a large storm off the coast of Mexico, has been downgraded to a category 4 hurricane but remains "very powerful", according to the US National Hurricane Center.

The Pacific hurricane, one of the strongest of the season, was projected to head towards the coast of south-western Mexico bringing intense wind and rain, but was not expected to make landfall.

The slow-moving storm is being fuelled by extremely warm waters caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon.

The BBC's Courtney Sargent explains how El Niño caused one of the most powerful storms of the season in the Pacific Ocean.

Read more about how the El Niño climate phenomenon is affecting the globes weather.

• SubsectionLatin America
• Published26 minutes ago

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