Tropical Storm Andres was expected to grow into the Pacific season’s first hurricane yesterday and deal a glancing blow to southwestern Mexico before churning its way up the coast past picturesque towns popular with foreign retirees.
Mexico issued a hurricane warning for the Pacific coast from just south of Manzanillo north to near Puerto Vallarta. To the south, officials in Acapulco prepared 120 shelters and warned residents to stay indoors, especially some 15,000 people in zones most at risk for flooding. Heavy rains late on Sunday knocked down a few trees in the resort city.
Forecasters said Andres was likely to brush the coast at hurricane strength around the port city of Manzanillo yesterday.
Forecast models showed its center later pushing up the coast near towns such as Barra de Navidad, which are home to some US and Canadian expatriates.
At Barra de Navidad, northwest of Manzanillo, Agapito Garcia Martinez, security manager at the Grand Bay Hotel-Isla Navidad Resort, said on Monday that hotel staff were preparing, including by taking in beach furniture and protecting hotel windows, but had not yet been advised by authorities to so.
Weather was still sunny despite stronger-than-usual winds and guests were still checking in normally to the hotel, he said. But that could change yesterday, when Andres drew closer.
Late on Sunday, Andres became the first named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season, which began on May 15 and ends on Nov. 30 and is typically busiest between July and September.
The US National Hurricane Center said Andres was centered about 200km south-southeast of Manzanillo at 2am yesterday and it had sustained winds near 110kph, with higher gusts.
It was moving toward the northwest near 13kph. The storm’s winds were expected to build as high as 12kph, just over the minimum for a hurricane, by late yesterday or today.
Most forecast models predicted the storm would brush the central Mexican coast yesterday before weakening and bending toward the west a little short of the Los Cabos resorts at the tip of the Baja California peninsula tomorrow night or on Friday.
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