Over the past several days, Hurricane Simon has lashed the Pacific coast of Mexico with torrential rain, damaging winds, and powerful storm surge, forcing evacuations and killing at least six people as it crept northward along the shoreline. While the storm is finally weakening, it remains a Category 1 hurricane that now threatens west-central Mexico and Baja California Sur.

Simon is the 21st named storm, 11th hurricane, and ninth major hurricane of the historic 2026 Pacific hurricane season. Thanks to its sustained organization, the Pacific has now broken its previous record for the most days with a hurricane spinning, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, told Bloomberg.

Klotzbach also told the Associated Press that on Sunday, a section of the Pacific that produces storms bound for Hawaii, Mexico, and the U.S. West Coast broke the record for accumulated cyclone energy (ACE). According to hurricane researcher Michael Ferragamo, the Pacific surpassed the previous record—set in 2018 at 318 units of ACE—by 1.2 units.

“The 2026 Pacific hurricane season is now the most intense on record,” Ferragamo wrote in an X post. “This is largely in part to Hurricane Simon which brought the season to the record.”

The basin’s hyperactivity doesn’t appear to be winding down any time soon, as Tropical Storm Trudy just formed in Simon’s wake. The National Hurricane Center expects Trudy to become a major hurricane as it approaches the Pacific coast of Mexico later this week.

With over a month of hurricane season to go and a record-breaking El Niño still gaining strength, it’s unlikely that Trudy will be the last Pacific hurricane of 2026.

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