The L-band passive microwave data from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory are investigated for remote sensing of ocean surface winds during severe storms. The surface winds of Joaquin derived from the real-time analysis of the Center of Advanced Data Assimilation and Predictability Techniques in the Penn State University support the linear extrapolation of the Aquarius and SMAP Geophysical Model Functions (GMFs) to hurricane force winds. We apply the SMAP and Aquarius GMFs to the retrieval of ocean surface wind vectors from the SMAP radiometer data to take advantage of SMAP’s two-look geometry. The SMAP radiometer wind speeds are compared with the winds from other satellites and numerical weather models for validation. The root-mean-square-difference (RMSD) with WindSat or SSMIS is 1.7 m/s below 20 m/s wind speeds. The RMSD with the ECMWF direction is 18 degrees for wind speeds between 12 and 30 m/s. We find that the correlation is sufficiently high between the maximum wind speeds retrieved by SMAP with 60 km resolution and the best track peak winds estimated by the National Hurricane Center and Joint Typhoon Warning Center to allow them to be estimated by SMAP with a correlation coefficient of 0.8 and an underestimation by 8 to 18 percent on average, which is likely due to the effects of spatial averaging. There is also a very good agreement with the airborne Stepped Frequency Radiometer (SFMR) wind speeds with an average RMSD of 4.6 m/s for wind speeds in the range of 20 to 40 m/s.